Edo Battle Shifts To Abuja As Obaseki’s Friends And Foes Divide PDP

By Francis Ogbuagu

The Edo State governorship contest has temporarily relocated from the state to Abuja as the state’s political warriors battle for supremacy and ascendancy among opinion and strategic political actors in the nation’s capital.

Governor Godwin Obaseki, the embattled incumbent who had in the past flayed his challengers as Abuja based politicians was himself also in Abuja for three days and was on Thursday morning reported to be back in Benin.

 The fight in Abuja which had all along been within the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC according to GWG findings has now crossed over to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP where the Obaseki ‘issue’ has also come to the fore.

PDP chieftains supportive and opposed to handing the party’s governorship ticket to Obaseki in the event of him losing in the APC have also relocated to Abuja where the lobby and counter lobby is also being played at the PDP national secretariat.

While in Abuja, Governor Obaseki besides rallying support among fellow governors also met with President Muhammadu Buhari and senior presidential aides during which time his message was for Oshiomhole to step aside from the contest being supposedly biased.

The former governor according to an associate, as a sign of bias wrote the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC of the intention to use the direct primary method for the selection of the candidate even before the issue came out before the National Working Committee, NWC.

“That is a measure of his bias, that he had a position different from what the state chapter wanted,” an associate of the governor said.

However, the Oshiomhole camp is dismissive of the governor hitting him as failing in his bid to reverse the decision on direct primaries “after running from pillar to post in Abuja.”

While the governor’s camp is insisting that he would win the ticket whether direct or indirect so long as Oshiomhole is removed from the process, the governor’s antagonists are warning that giving the ticket to him would imperil the party at the main election.

“Do you think all those 14 lawmakers he stopped will watch him go for a second term like that? They will work against the party to ensure that the PDP wins because if he can do this in the first term you can well imagine what will happen to us in the second term,” one critic of the governor said.

Meanwhile, Obaseki is already causing a rift within the PDP.

Some key PDP leaders who had in the past associated with Oshiomhole are also trying to use him to get back at the former governor.

Key PDP leaders including the Igbinedion family and Chief Tom Ikimi GWG gathered are among those lobbying the national leadership of the party to give the ticket to Obaseki should he fail to get the ticket in the APC.

The argument it was gathered, has also fueled fury among some in the state with the powerful immediate past chairman, Chief Dan Orbih among those seriously arguing against it.

Orbih, GWG gathered, has also relocated to Abuja to join the lobby against the lobby of those holding forth for Obaseki in the PDP leadership.

Orbih who is a strong associate of Governor Nyesom Wike is also said to be in the same stance with Governor Wike on the Obaseki issue, a development that has put the lobbyists for the governor in a tight corner.

The developments in the PDP is irrespective of Governor Obaseki’s assertion at the APC secretariat that he will sink or swim in the APC.

Send Us A Press Statement Advertise With Us Contact Us

 And For More Nigerian News Visit GWG.NG