The Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki says he could not risk backing Philip Shaibu to succeed him as the leader of the state.
Shaibu and Obaseki, former allies, fell off in the former’s quest to become the governor of Edo State. The former deputy governor was later impeached by the Edo State House of Assembly for leaking government information.
Despite claims in some quarters that the Edo State governor betrayed his former ally, Obaseki said the political permutations in the South-South state did not favour his former deputy to take over the reins of office at the Dennis Osadebay House in Benin City.
“For me, I did not understand where the ambition was coming from because it was clear that the odds were not in his favour in terms of succeeding me and I made it very clear,” he said on Monday’s edition of Channels Television’s Politics Today in an apparent reference to the state’s power-sharing arrangement.
“So, I could not take any risk on his ambition because I have to protect the Edo people. So, I could not take that risk on Edo people.”
In the wake of his impeachment, Shaibu had described the development as an attack on the country’s democracy.
“This is not just an attack on me as an individual but on the democracy that we hold dear,” he said in a social media video post.
“It is a dangerous descent into dictatorship and a threat to the foundation of our democracy. Let it be clear that this impeachment was hatched because of my ambition to contest the Edo State 2024 governorship election under the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. An ambition that is a legal right to all citizens of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” he said.
