Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Edo State, Jarrett Tenebe, has claimed that candidate of the party in the forthcoming governorship election in the state, Monday Okpebholo, has not appeared in any television interview because residents of the state cannot afford monthly DStv subscription.
While candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party; Asue Oghodalo and Olumide Akpata, have made several appearances on national television stations to sell their manifesto to the people, APC flagbearer, Okpebholo, has not made any appearance.
Over the past few weeks, journalists on Arise TV’s ‘Morning Show’ have been calling on the three leading governorship candidates in Edo to appear on the show to discuss their manifestos.
While Akpata and his PDP counterpart, Ighodalo, have appeared on the Arise TV show, Okpebholo has yet to honour the interview request.
But while appearing on the Arise TV ‘Morning Show’ on Thursday, Tenebe was asked why Okpebholo had not granted the interview request.
He claimed that resident of the state are so poor under the administration of governor Godwin Obaseki, that they cannot afford subscriptions to watch programmes on cable channels, and consequently, the party’s candidate does not intend to waste his time speaking on television.
“We have about 80,000 people (in Edo) who are supposedly able to get DStv,” he said.
“We cannot have up to like 300 people that can connect to DStv because of how Obaseki has impoverished the state. Everybody is now poor in Edo because of bad governance.
“People can no longer feed in Edo state and talk less of subscribing to the internet. Nobody is watching you (Arise TV) because people don’t have money to watch (cable TV subscription).
“If you want Monday Okpebholo to come to your interview, try as much as possible to subscribe for the audience of Edo.
“People are not watching. Obaseki has impoverished the state to that level. People of Edo have DStv and GOtv, but they don’t have money to subscribe because of how Obaseki has run the state aground and impoverished it.”
