The Deputy Governor of Edo State, Philip Shaibu, has taken a swipe at Governor Godwin Obaseki following the recent defeat of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Asue Ighodalo, in the just-concluded Edo governorship election.
Newslamp Nigeria reports that the election’s Returning Officer, Professor Faruq Adamu Kuta, Vice-Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology (FUT), Minna, declared that Monday Okpebholo of the All Progressives Congress (APC) won the election, defeating Obaseki’s preferred PDP candidate, Asue Ighodalo.
Reacting to the election results in an interview with Arise TV on Monday, Shaibu, who had previously been impeached and reinstated as Deputy Governor of Edo State, stated that Obaseki’s defeat was due to his alienation of key political allies who had initially supported his rise to power.
According to Shaibu, Obaseki’s refusal to collaborate with important allies and his autocratic style created widespread discontent among his supporters.
Shaibu, who recently defected back to the APC, added that the governor’s attitude had led to the defection of over 600 key PDP leaders to the APC.
He also accused Obaseki of telling him and nine others who contested in the PDP’s primary gubernatorial election to ‘go to hell’ for all he cared.
He said, “We made Obaseki governor. I continue to insist because Obaseki was never a politician. Obaseki never voted, just like Asue in Edo State. But when Oshiomole convinced us why we should support him, we all came together to back him. In his second term, you can see the role we played in making him the governor of Edo State.
“Today, the game-changer is that all of us whom God put together to assist Obaseki in becoming governor during his first and second terms. Obaseki has offended all of us and pushed us to the extent that we were forced out of the PDP.
“The game-changer was his refusal to share his program with us, thinking he could be an autocrat, a dictator, and enforce his will. He feels he now has the money which he didn’t have in 2016 to use to buy his way through.
“There were 10 of us who contested in the PDP primaries, and to 9 of us, he said to go to hell to leaders who went around canvassing for him, he also said to go to hell. It started with Oshiomole.
“The last time I counted, about 618 of us, key leaders, left the PDP for the APC. And the interesting thing is, we who left APC to PDP, when we were returning, we left with members of PDP to the extent that the ward leaders and executives were all resigning.”