Exposed: How Adjoto Lied Using Obaseki’s Name.
By Osagie Esosa
It has now been revealed from sources close to Governor Godwin Obaseki that Adjoto Kabiru lied when he told the DPO of the Igarra Police Station the governor instructed him not to allow the meeting of PDP excos to hold.
Last week Friday, the Akoko-Edo PDP under the chairmanship of Prince Ogunubi, members were billed to hold a meeting at the Party’s secretariat at Igarra but was scuttled by one Adjoto Kabiru, former Edo State Speaker House of Assembly, who they have always been known, according to sources close to Akoko-Edo, for using thugs from Kogi State to perpetuate electoral malpractices while in APC.
It was reported that while the meeting was about to take place, he sent thugs to lock up the secretariat, the PDP members were angry and wanted to break the key or bring the door down, which would have resorted to all-out violence. The DPO of the station was called into the matter immediately to forestall any chaos. It was said the DPO categorical said to both the chairman, Prince Ogunubi and the PDP National Leader, Akoko-Edo, Engr Fred Attah, that one Adjoto Kabiru called him from Benin instructing him not to allow the meeting to hold because the Governor, Godwin Obaseki, did not sanction the meeting. The entire state was on Saturday thrown into shock when the news was released by several newspapers. Members of the party could not understand the rationale for such an action by the governor who is a card-carrying member of the party, and why he would stop a meeting that was openly supposed to be held to further the growth of the party towards 2023. Several leaders of political parties(both APC and PDP) across the state were critical of the said instruction by Adjoto Kabiru, which they say was capable of truncating democratic processes in Edo State. Several calls by concerned citizens were put through to the Edo State PDP Chairman, the Deputy Governor and even the SSG to ascertain the truth of the matter.
Read Also: Edo PDP Crisis: Group Calls For the Removal of Iyoha, Iyamu from Obaseki’s Cabinet.
From our sources in the government house, it was later revealed that the said Adjoto Kabiru lied, the Governor denied to close aides that never was a time he told him to stop a legal meeting of the PDP excos from holding in Akoko-Edo, and that he acted on his own. This could be corroborated by the defence Adjoto Kabiru made to those who scrutinized him for his actions. He said he did what he did to forestall violence and that his intentions were misconstrued. Again, the escapist defence was found out to be a lie; there has never been a time where violence could have ensued without his express support in Akoko-Edo because he was the one, according to our sources in the LGA, that birthed the idea of the now failed harmonization there. It was the handful of his supporters, few of them, that are known for violence and as it were, they are no match numerically to the majority of PDP members who are with the Prince Ogunubi led excos both in the LGA and wards.
According to other outside sources, the now-disgraced Adjoto Kabiru has been warned by party stakeholders in government to stop fomenting trouble in the LGA and allow for peace to reign there. He was advised to work with the duly constituted authorities in the party if he wish to contest the election as House of Representives in the area since the excos harmonization has failed because the excos are going to be the delegates for the primaries.
It can be recalled that last year, it was on the news that thugs loyal to this same Adjoto Kabiru were caught on video manhandling an 80-year-old man in one of the wards for trying to hold a PDP meeting. The video went viral and he and the thugs were condemned around the world. Up till press time, the thugs have never been apprehended. The said Adjoto Kabiru was interviewed by one Mike Enahoro last year and when asked about his complicity in the sordid event, he again lied that a committee of inquiry was set up to look at the matter. Both the LGA PDP chairman, Prince Ogunubi, and the National PDP Leader, Engr Fred Attah, as well as critical stakeholders, said no such committee was set up, and that the culprits loyal to Adjoto Kabiru were walking freely.
The crisis in Edo State PDP is fizzling out apart from Kabiru Adjoto and Osaigbovo Iyoha who are both nursing ambitions to run for elections in their respective LGAs, therefore, trying everything possible to use the instrumentalities of violence to achieve the same. Both of them had created illegal excos unknown to the Party’s Constitution, which the National Working Committee of the party has condemned in strong words. PDP groups have since been calling for these particular elements in PDP to be suspended and expelled from the party for anti-party activities.
