The Editor-In-Chief caught up with veteran journalist and politician, Erasmus Ikhide, and a conversation followed.
Sit back and enjoy the ride!
PG: In your younger days, you worked for various media houses. What attracted you to journalism?
Erasmus Ikhide: My earliest dream was to become a lawyer and a wish to become a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) until tragedy struck. I was informed by my late dad, Dr. Johnson Okpeku Ikhide, who passed off News Watch Magazines to me to read regularly. As one of the greatest late Dele Giwa’s fans, with his _Parallax_ Snap Column he was killed by a parcel bomb. The bad news sank my spirit and I began to have sleepless nights. That was the turning point. Before then, I had become an avid reader of all written materials. There and then I made up my mind to become a journalist and began to pursue the course even though my dad also passed away a few weeks later.
PG: You are a reporter with anti-corruption online portal– Trojan Insights; what controversial stories have you done?
Erasmus Ikhide: I’m just a reporter with the news outfit in a controversial country called Nigeria whose only air is surviving on corruption. There are countless controversial stories that have landed me into trouble and I miraculously got out the sneak of the corrupt oligarch by sheer stroke of providence. But there are certain aspects of modern-day journalism that intrigues, emboldens, nourishes, and should even burnish upcoming journalists in a crime scene like Nigeria. Majority of those who are at the helm of the current leadership of the country since 1960 are either direct siblings or their relatives. The records are there to prove their culpability. For instance, and interestingly, the current National Security Adviser, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu is now part of the government and the majority of political elite he once accused of corruption. Secondly, there are several ways stories can now be reported without necessarily getting your figures burnt. The New Media has made that possible, if you get my point.
PG: You had a stint in government as a media aide to both Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola. Please share your experiences with both men.
Erasmus Ikhide: Both Aregbesola and Oshiomhole are astute and unique in their intrinsic ways. It’s true one is organic and clear headed while the other is unnecessarily self-seeking. My experience in political offices were just accidental and a derailment from the already charted course. I really did wish I was not appointed but elected in the positions I found myself at the time.
PG: You had a running battle with the Godwin Obaseki led government; why was it so?
Erasmus Ikhide: Governor Godwin Obaseki is the demon of Edo and Nigerian political history whom some persons are currently eulogizing as a hero. In saner climes, he should have been jailed by now. Unfortunately, we are in a country where losers are returned as winners and criminals are draped with chieftaincy regalia. I have never seen such debased human flesh with studied hypotheses; complexity in human behaviour, clinically treacherous, and a psychopathic monster, all my life. In 2016, Obaseki rode into Edo State Government House on the wings of his godfather, Mr. Adams Oshiomhole. In 2020, after using Oshiomhole as a burnt offering, he chanted a slogan against godfatherism. Shockingly in 2024, became a godfather. His 8 years of regrettable fraud has recently been computed by his predecessor, Governor Okpebholo, having destroyed education and all that the citizens of the state have labored for. His reign was apocalyptic.
PG: As a card carrying member of the Labour Party, why isn’t the party a virile opposition party?
Erasmus Ikhide: Nigerians made political parties, political parties don’t make Nigerians. By that I mean Nigerians efforts at establishing virile, progressive, organic and people-centered Labour Party in 2023 by majorly the youngest numbers of the citizens is celebratory, but unfortunately not enough. There are groups who called themselves “Obedient Movement,” who openly disassociated and distanced themselves from the Labour Party, and the leadership of the party was lost in the labyrinth of the frenzy that was near revolution in nature. The Labour Party’s failure to harness the millions of youths who voted for Peter Obi in the 2023 presidential election and the Gen Z inability to differentiate between a political party, a mere cultic solidarity of an individual, like Peter Gregory Obi is the single reason for the Labour Party’s stagnancy and sterility. I just hope the Labour Party leadership and what is left of the Obedient Movement understand this in their own enlightened self-interest.
PG: What is your view on President Tinubu’s removal of subsidy on his inauguration day?
Erasmus Ikhide: My views on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration removal of fuel subsidy is public knowledge. In fact, there’s no other subject I have treated more aggressively than the unfortunate, dehumanizing, scorched-earth and ill-thought policy in recent times. President Tinubu acted like a madman who suddenly grabbed the steering of a stationery trailer without a brake and crashed into a crowded market place. The nation’s economy has never experienced such a sudden convulsion, leading to the collapse of both human and national economies. The worst aspect of the thoughtless scenario was the open defence his minders mounted as though the rest of us are brain dead themselves. I have concluded, as far as the episode of fuel subsidy economic turmoil goes, there is nothing Tinubu can’t destroy and put up defence for. Majority of those in APC and Tinubu’s administration know this but they’re afraid of losing patronage in spheres of the nation’s economy.
PG: What is your view on the student loan scheme of the Tinubu administration?
Erasmus Ikhide: The student loan scheme of President Tinubu’s administration is not bad in itself, but the challenges plaguing it are legion. It’s just like the failed cash transfer of President Buhari’s administration where databases were conjured up without a single individual on the street who ever reached the cash transfer. First, how do you come up with such a policy that bothers the 37.5%, that is between the ages 14-30 of the nation’s population, without carrying stakeholders along? Virtually all those who should have said this much.
Besides, the policy merely put the cart before the horse and there was no clear modality on the repayment plans. Currently, 43% of the country’s population is under 14 years and 33% between 15 and 24 years, with this growth trend expected to continue until at least 2050, as the country’s population continues to grow at an annual rate of 2.3% (UNDESA, 2022). Between 2010 and 2030, about 66 million people are expected to join the ranks of Nigeria’s working-age population. While some see the uniqueness and scale of Africa’s “demographic bulge” as overstated, in policy circles in Nigeria, a young workforce is viewed as a massive resource to engineer regional growth. Similar developmental thinking is evident in international organisations like the World Bank’s advocacy around developing youth capabilities through investments in health and education.
PG: Is the Tinubu administration really fighting corruption?
Erasmus Ikhide: What makes you think Tinubu would ever fight corruption? Asking me whether Tinubu’s administration is really fighting corruption is rhetorical. You can go and ask Mr. Danladi Umar of the Code of Conduct Tribunal, who docked President Tinubu sometime in 2014 and have been prevented from completing his term in office for prosecuting the president in 2014. Ditto Abdulrasheed Bawa whose term in office was terminated because of his alleged prosecution of Tinubu for corruption before he became president of the country. It is obvious that the war against graft is an assumed marathon race without gaining a single distance. Until President Tinubu declares his assets, which is the standard practice and probes himself, the whole preaching about anti-corruption war is hogwash.
PG: How is Senator Monday Okpebholo faring as the Edo State Governor?
Erasmus Ikhide: 100 days is not enough to review an administration that is supposedly meant to run for yesterday, baring all circumstances.
PG: Can the PDP cause an upset at the Edo State Elections Petitions Tribunal sitting in Abuja?
Erasmus Ikhide: Even if I were an Angel or Malaika, I can’t predict the election tribunal since the Nigerian judiciary has chosen to become the destroyer of the hope of the common. At any rate, something tells me that the judiciary will set Nigerian ablaze someday.
PG: On a final note, do journalists make good politicians?
Erasmus Ikhide: Journalists can make the best politicians in every respect. Segun Osoba was Governor of Ogun State and Buni Haruna in Adamawa State and many more. Lateef Kayode Jakande was arguably the best Governor of Lagos State, Bisi Onabanjo did his best as the governor of Ogun State and Chief Anthony Eromosele Enahoro was an outstanding politician.