PDP treating us as strangers, despite what Obaseki did – Edo’s Shaibu
Philip Shaibu, the deputy governor of Edo State, says despite Governor Godwin Obaseki appointing old PDP to commissionership posts, his own supporters are being mistreated in the party.
Shaibu was reacting to speculation that the Obaseki group might defect from the party on which platform the governor returned for a second term of office.
“For me, Philip Shaibu, I have no plans to leave. For Philip Shaibu, his followers, and the followers of Obaseki that left APC to PDP, they plan to leave PDP but to where? For now, I don’t know,” he said.
“Why? Because we felt we are not accepted in PDP and that is the reason we are actually thinking that it is time to just draw the curtains and leave.
“We left APC because of the oppression by APC national chairman meted on the governor. And for some of us that hated oppression, we decided to jettison our relationship with the godfather then to follow the governor to the PDP.
“We have not been accepted into PDP and for us, we are not telling the governor it is either now or we leave.
“We are in PDP now and expected that we will be integrated. When I say ‘we’, not just Philip Shaibu, I’m talking about Anselm Ojezua (former Edo APC chairman) and the state working committee, the ward chairmen and the executives, the leaders of APC then and all the well-wishers that left APC because of Obaseki.
“We have been meeting and we have said we need to be integrated. Anselm Ojezua resigned his membership of chairman of the state; the ward chairmen resigned; other executives resigned to join PDP.
“As I speak, they have not been integrated and we are talking about harmonisation; they have refused to harmonise. For some of us, that means we are not welcome in PDP.
“We are not saying dismantle, drive everybody and accept us. We are saying create room for Anselm Ojezua and create room for x. Just like we have done in the appointment in government — we’ve created space for the old PDP that we met. They are commissioners.”
