The political firmament in Edo State has been polluted heavily in the last three months as the romance between Governor Godwin Obaseki and his deputy, Comrade Philip Shaibu, has hit the rocks. With speculation of impeachment of the deputy governor hanging in the air and the almost physical restriction of access to his principal, Shaibu headed for the court to seek repose. That itself fouled the atmosphere the more and the state appears heading to a political Golgotha. ‘SUYI AYODELE, REGIONAL EDITOR, SOUTH-SOUTH AND SOUTH-EAST, in this piece, takes a look at the intrigues that has been playing out in the hitherto peaceful state.
ONE African fable which succinctly situates the feud between Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State and his deputy, Comrade Philip Shaibu, is the tale of a mad man, who set up a small fire in a corner of the house, but which later became a conflagration. To prove his innocence that he was not responsible for the inferno that engulfed the entire house, the mad man stood firmly by the spot where he set the fire and whenever asked why he burnt down the whole house, would respond to whoever cared to listen, pointing to the spot, and announced that he could only account for the fire on that spot and would not know who was responsible for the raging inferno in the other parts of the building. The import of this ancient fable is to warn that as mortals, we only know the beginning of a crisis, while the ending and the extent it can go, is only known to the cosmic. This is why human beings are admonished to avoid crisis as much as they can.
The political marriage between Governor Obaseki and Shaibu began in 2016, when without consultation with all stakeholders, the immediate past governor of the state, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, imposed the duo on the state as governorship and deputy governorship candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC). While Shaibu, through the instrumentality of Oshiomhole, had before his 2016 voyage to the Dennis Osadebey Avenue, Government House, as deputy governor, had various tastes of political powers, Obaseki on the other hand, was a complete tenderfoot, without any probationary period in the political field. A source, who pleaded strict anonymity, told Nigerian Tribune that at one of the meetings Oshiomhole held in the palace of the Otaru of Auchi, Alhaji Aliru Momoh Ikelebe III, to sell the Obaseki/Shaibu agenda to the foremost Afemai monarch, the Otaru raised the concern on the propriety of Oshiomhole from Uzairue clan wanting to make another Uzairue person as the deputy governor. The monarch’s stance was that if indeed the position must come to Edo North, it should have gone to the other clans like the Akoko Edo and the Owan. The Otaru, it was gathered, further argued that even if the other clans ceded the position to the Etsako side, it should not be to the Uzairue. The protestations fell on Oshiomhole’s ears, who was said to have spent hours persuading the monarch and his Auchi people to accept Shaibu’s candidature.
The same scenario played out in Edo South senatorial district, where everyone who Oshiomhole discussed the Obaseki’s governorship agenda with, also kicked against the idea. At the buildup to the 2020 governorship election in the state, while trying to mediate in the crisis that had almost paralysed the state as Obaseki and Shaibu had left the APC for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), for their second term ambition, having been denied the ticket by Oshiomhole, who was then the national chairman of the party, the Omo N’Oba N’Edo Uku Akpolokpolo, Oba Ewuare II, Oba of Benin, told Oshiomhole, in the presence of Obaseki, Shaibu, and other dignitaries, that when Oshiomhole came calling on him to present the Obaseki agenda, the former governor gave the revered monarch no alternative. The Omo N’Oba then wondered what had gone wrong with that romance such that the entire state was turned into a theater of war. The Oba of Benin’s poser gave an insight into the political acrimony between Obaseki/Shaibu and their hitherto godfather, Oshiomhole. What happened?
According to information gathered by the Nigerian Tribune, hardly had the Obaseki administration settled down in 2016, when the duo of Obaseki and Shaibu decided to carve a different structure for themselves outside the political structures which brought them to power. While in government, Oshiomhole played the “people’s governor’ role and was generous in dispensing political patronage to all and sundry. The street boys, who served literarily as the foot soldiers of the APC-cum Oshiomhole’s political dynasty, were the greatest beneficiaries of the patronage. From revenue collections on behalf of the 18 local government councils, to the control of motor parks, quarry sites and other sundry sources of revenue, the “Oshiomhole boys’ became mega rich people. One of them hosted a lavish party to celebrate his joining the billionaires club. Obaseki, who was the head of the economic team for the eight years of Oshiomhole administration never liked the idea. It was therefore not shocking that shortly after he became governor, he went after the boys and ran them completely out of business and out of town. Complaints reached Oshiomhole and he decided to have a word with Obaseki over the development. It was said that rather than listen to the political counselling that “the boys make things happen politically”, Obaseki and Shaibu branded Oshiomhole as “an overbearing godfather” and jettisoned his advice. Shaibu, on several occasions, said that the only reason he decided to fight Oshiomhole was because “after boasting to have retired all godfathers in the state and ended godfatherism, Oshiomhole decided to become a godfather himself.” The duo ganged up and their godfather became an endangered species in the political calculations.
They dismantled the Oshiomhole’s structures. While that was going on, the former Labour leader, aligning with the Lagos end of the APC led by the current president Bola Ahmed Tinubu, upstaged the then APC National Chairman and former governor of Edo State, Chief John Odigie Oyegun, and had Oshiomhole installed in his stead. Taking his pound of flesh for the way Obaseki and Shaibu treated him and had him suspended from the APC, Oshiomhole denied the duo of their second term bid. Political watchers were scandalised when Oshiomhole advanced certificate forgery as the reason why APC could not field Obaseki for a second term and instead went for an unusual enemy, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, who was asked to defect from the PDP to the APC. Many politicians who were victims of Obaseki’s political patronage stinginess, were offended by the reason advanced by Oshiomhole to disqualify Obaseki. Many could not reconcile how the same certificates Oshiomhole defended in 2016 suddenly became fake in 2020. With the political barricade in the APC, Obaseki and Shaibu shipped themselves to the PDP, and ‘won’ the party’s ticket. That marked the beginning of the conflagration in the state. For those who are familiar with the politics of Edo State, no election has ever been as turbulent as the 2020 gubernatorial race in the state. In terms of violence, Oshiomhole was pummeled, and all his boys decimated financially, physically, and otherwise. It was in the heat of that turmoil that the Oba of Benin called for a peace meeting, where he asked when the otherwise rosy relationship between Oshiomhole and the Obaseki/Shaibu team became sour.
At the end of the election, Obaseki and Oshiomhole won. Oshiomhole was removed as APC national chairman, just as the governor and his deputy settled down for their second term. However, rumours of cracks between Obaseki and Shaibu started assuming lives of their own late 2021, when it was gathered that Shaibu was nursing the hope of taking over from his principal come 2024. Another competent source, who was privy to the setup, told the Nigerian Tribune that “when the governor heard about the rumours, he asked the deputy governor and Shaibu denied it. Despite the fact that Shaibu denied the rumours of his ambition, the governor told him that why he (Obaseki) was not against anybody’s ambition, he said that they should focus on governance first and the reconciliation of all the aggrieved members of the PDP,” the source explained. The source added that while intelligence reports pointed out the truth of the matter, the governor said that since the deputy had denied that he should be believed. “We were shocked at that attitude. More shocking was that Obaseki kept on empowering Shaibu and almost handed over everything to him. If he was travelling out of the country, he would hand over the state to Shaibu. The deputy governor was controlling sports, the local governments and everything,” the source further explained.
Nigerian Tribune also gathered from another source close to the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Mr. Osarodion Ogie, who was said to be nursing the same governorship ambition as Shaibu, but who is from Edo South senatorial District like Obaseki, that another more detailed report came to the governor, and he decided to confront the two of them. It was gathered that at the meeting, “His Excellency told the two of them to slow down on their ambition as it was affecting the government, and the reconciliation efforts of the PDP. While the SSG agreed with the governor, Shaibu told His Excellency that he had gone far and could not slow down. It was at that point that His Excellency got angry and left the meeting”, the source explained. A member of the State House of Assembly, who knew about the meeting, told Nigerian Tribune that it was at that point that Governor Obaseki decided to “listen to the political advice leaders have been giving him and he decided to clip the deputy governor’s wings”.
The first step Obaseki took was to remove local government control under Shaibu and relocate the same to the Governor’s Office. He first reduced the astronomical daily payment by commercial bus drivers in the state by almost half. He went further to direct the local government revenue agents to report to the new Directorate created for the same in the Governor’s Office. Then on May 3, 2023, he lashed the masterstroke, when, after the Wednesday state Executive Council Meeting, the governor announced the dissolution of the state cabinet. The news was not just sudden, it was gathered that it caught Shaibu unawares as none of his close friends in the Obaseki kitchen cabinet had an idea of what was in the offing. Barely a month later, on June 9, 2023, Obaseki sent a list of 15 commissioner nominees to the State House of Assembly for consideration. The interesting thing about the list was that the governor left the three local governments in the Shaibu’s Etsako enclave (Etsako East, West and Central), out of the list. It was gathered that while the governor asked Shaibu to produce names of nominees for the three councils, he, nevertheless, insisted that all stakeholders in the localities must be carried along, a practice said to be alien to Shaibu, who like his mentor, Oshiomhole, shares no political booty with anybody. The commissioner nominees having been cleared, the governor set June 13, 2023, for the inauguration of the 15 commissioner designates.
At the inauguration ceremony, Shaibu was conspicuously absent. Later in the evening, pictures and videos of the deputy governor at the party organised for Edo State members of the National Assembly, who were earlier that same day inaugurated, began to circulate. In one of the videos, Shaibu was spotted in a convivial tete-a-tete with Comrade Oshiomhole, who was also inaugurated as a senator. While many believed that Shaibu deliberately shunned the inauguration of the new cabinet in his home state to attend the Abuja event, a source close to the deputy governor explained that what happened was mere coincidence. Obaseki has since gone ahead to appoint four more commissioners and constituted a full state executive council without the input of his deputy. the same way Shaibu was practically shut out of the selection of candidates for the positions of local government chairmen and deputy local government chairmen, whose elections took place on Saturday, September 2, 2023.
That singular act, no matter how inadvertently it was, marked a new turn in the Obaseki and Shaibu relationship. After the-difficult-to-explain absence of Shaibu at that all important swearing-in ceremony, Nigerian Tribune gathered that Governor Obaseki ordered his security details to curtail Shaibu’s access to him. The first of such restrictions happened on the night of Thursday, June 15, 2023, when Obaseki summoned all PDP members-elect of the House of Assembly to his private residence for a meeting to strategise for the inauguration of the assembly the following day. It was gathered that when Shaibu got to the gate of the governor’s private residence, Obaseki’s security detail prevented him from entering and asked the deputy governor to call his principal, who on the other end refused to pick his subordinate’s calls. Frustrated, Shaibu turned back. Explaining why he took such a decision, Obaseki, while meeting with Shaibu’s kinsmen earlier this month, explained that he had information that Shaibu had contacted the APC in the state to bargain that the party should direct its seven members in the 24-man assembly to join the five PDP members loyal to Shaibu to produce the speaker. Obaseki viewed the alleged romance between his deputy and the APC as a coup against him. While the deputy governor’s camp has informally denied the allegation, a source within the PDP said, “if you get to know who called the governor to tell him about Shaibu’s proposal, you will run away from us, politicians.”
Ever since, it has become one restriction or the other. This explained why the deputy governor, sensing that his principal might do the unthinkable, approached an Abuja Federal High Court to seek reliefs against an alleged plan by the governor, in connivance with some other co-defendants, to impeach him. Shaibu in that suit asked the court to also stop the security agencies named as co-defendants, from preventing him from performing his duties as the deputy governor. If Shaibu thought the suit would bring any reprieve, he was mistaken. In what appeared to be his first official public outing with his principal, Shaibu was spotted on Sunday, August 27, 2023, at an interdenominational service organised to mark the 32nd anniversary of the creation of the state, prevented by a security detail from accessing the governor.
The following day, August 28, at the 60th anniversary of Midwest Referendum celebration held at the Sir Victor Uwaifo Creative Hub and Soundstage, Shaibu’s media crew was practically thrown out of the venue just as the deputy governor had to leave the venue abruptly when he could not get his media crew into the hall. Nigerian Tribune source, however, said that Governor Obaseki, who had before the outbreak of the current hostility between him and his deputy, been tolerating the deputy governor coming to events, including State Executive Council, after the governor must have arrived and taken his seat, was determined to apply strict protocol “on the order of arrival and departure at state’s event, and it is left for the deputy governor to adjust”.
In all these, Shaibu, while speaking at a Government House event, where he was restricted from access to his principal, declared: “My loyalty to the governor remains absolute. I see that everybody is doing solidarity. I am also in solidarity with the governor. I am also declaring my unalloyed solidarity and loyalty to the governor and nothing more. As for the issues that are around town when I was away, I really would not want to talk. Issues that concern my governor are not things I like to speak about on camera. No, no, no! He is my elder brother and boss, and I don’t think I should talk about anything. And if I have issues with him, I think it is better settled at home and not in the media.” He however stressed that his ambition remained personal to him and assured that such would not affect his commitment and loyalty to the governor. But has that reassurance assuaged the feelings of Obaseki, who told Shaibu’s kinsmen that he was shocked by the conduct of his subordinate? The poser was answered by another round of rumours mid last week that plans were afloat to relocate the deputy governor from his present office in the Government House to somewhere in the Government Reservation Area (GRA). A signpost surfaced on Friday night depicting a new office for the deputy governor. The signpost, erected on No 7, Dennis Osadebey Avenue, announced the new office of the deputy governor to the obviously abandoned house with the bold inscription: “Office of The Deputy Governor. No 7, Dennis Osadebey Avenue, G.R.A. Benin City”. Also, Shaibu’s case is pending before the Abuja Federal High Court. Governor Obaseki on his part said that he had no plan to impeach his deputy. The state, however, is sitting on the edge as events keep pointing to an impending political dislocation. While sources insist that Obaseki is not against Shaibu’s ambition, it is not clear if the governor would also support any candidate from either Edo South or Edo North come 2024. It appears that both Obaseki and Oshiomhole are on the same page on the issue of allowing Edo Central, which has not produced the governor except in the short-lived Professor Osariemen Osunbor administration that was terminated in 2008, when the Court of Appeal sacked him and declared Oshiomhole as the winner of the 2007 governorship election. Should that be the case, Shaibu would be torn between the two political sledgehammers of his hitherto bosses: Obaseki and Oshiomhole. It is indeed an interesting time ahead of the state. What is happening in the state is like the proverbial fire set by a mad man. Who will account for the inferno that has consumed the entire building?
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