Edo 2024: Shaibu declares support for opposition candidate

The former Deputy Governor of Edo State, Philip Shaibu, has declared support for Monday Okpebholo, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), in the 21 September governorship election in the state.

Mr Shaibu made the declaration on Sunday on the sidelines of the 2024 Father’s Day celebration at Saint Paul’s Catholic Church in Benin City, the Edo State capital.

The former deputy governor was one of the mass (alter) servants at the ceremony, Channels Television reported.

Mr Shaibu, a former governorship aspirant on the PDP platform, was removed from office by the Edo House of Assembly for allegedly disclosing official government secrets. His removal from office climaxed his political rift with Governor Godwin Obaseki.

Mr Shaibu said his action – supporting an opposition candidate —- is not “anti-party”, adding that Mr Obaseki had said everybody was free to choose who to support in any election.

“The governor of Edo State, Godwin Obaseki, says that everybody has the right to support whoever he wants to support, but he also forgot that he doesn’t have the right to stop anybody from whom he wants to support.

“But I take one part from what he said: We all have the right to support whom we want to support, so it’s my right to decide who I want to support,” he said.

Why support the opposition candidate

While aspiring to secure the governorship ticket of the PDP, Mr Shaibu had described himself as a “homeboy” and urged the people to support his ambition that he understands their challenges.

But Asue Ighodalo, a Lagos-based lawyer and banker who is Mr Obaseki’s preferred successor, got the PDP ticket instead of him.

After failing to secure the ticket, Mr Shaibu said besides him, the two other “homeboys” in the race were the candidates of the APC, Mr Okpebholo, and that of the Labour Party, Olumide Akpata.

Without directly mentioning Mr Ighodalo’s name, Mr Shaibu described the PDP candidate as an “outsider” and Mr Obaseki’s godson. He said they had agreed to stop godfatherism in the state.

“I will support a homeboy. I came into politics to contest as the governor of Edo State because I need the government to return to homeboys – people who understand our plight, people who understand what the people are feeling—even the United Nations talks about the need for assessment. We don’t want outsiders, we have experimented with outsiders, and it’s not working. So, this time around, we want homeboy.”

“Today, I came in as a homeboy. We have only two homeboys in the major political parties in Edo State. One is in labour, and one is in APC, and I choose to follow another homeboy in the APC.

“The man they are parading in the PDP is an outsider, and we have also agreed that no more godfatherism in Edo. So, the man the PDP is trying to portray in Edo now is the godson of Obaseki, and there is no way godsons will now be governor of Edo,” Mr Shaibu said.