The crisis rocking the Edo State politics took a new dimension on Friday with Governor Godwin Obaseki asking the Edo people to give him a second term ticket because he had worked for it.
Obaseki, who received the Nigeria Union of Teachers’ best performing governor award for 2019, said he had fulfilled most of his promises to the people.
The governor emphasised that having a second term in office was “not negotiable”.
But in a quick reaction to Obaseki’s comment, leaders of the All Progressives Congress in the state under the aegis of the Edo Peoples Movement, said Obaseki did not deserve a second term and that they would shop for a better candidate that would be the party’s candidate in 2020.
Obaseki said, “No individual can determine who will become governor. Only God and the people can make the decision.
“I have said it clearly and I told my cabinet members that second term for me is non-negotiable. I am demanding it because I deserve it and I think I have earned it. We need to have it so we can continue what we are doing today.”
However, a factional group of the ruling APC, known as ESO Peoples Movement, vowed to ensure that Obaseki did not return for second term.
The group also called on the state chairman of the party, Mr Anslem Ojezua, to resign, saying he had failed to solve the crisis bedeviling the party.
The leaders stated this in a statement signed by a former Minority Whip of the House of Representatives, Samson Osagie, and a former Speaker of the state House of Assembly, Thomas Okosun.
According to the statement, Governor Obaseki has not given a good, tangible and acceptable account of his stewardship three years into his administration, adding that he merely attempted to spoil the APC brand by employing deceitful tactics to give Edo people the impression that he is performing whereas his administration is “more of the more you look the less you see”.
“Governor Obaseki exhibited the highest degree of infidelity to Edo people and the APC by abandoning projects he participated in sourcing for funds for, and then turned around to blackmail the same government that started those projects,” the statement read.
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