PDP Crisis: Obaseki’s Planned Defection to APC and the Hurdles.
In Edo State, when you take up issues of the crisis in PDP with any die-hard supporter of Governor Godwin Obaseki, they will tell you absent-mindedly without conviction that he is being wooed back to APC, even when that is not the case.
There is no record, even in the realms of rumor or hearsay that he is being courted back to the party that is faced with its huge share of crisis at the national level.
What we do know is that the governor is looking for a way to go back to the party on his own but he will be faced with hurdles that seem suicidal because he is sandwiched at the moment between the deep blue sea and man-eating leopards. But let’s leave this for the last.
Godwin Obaseki’s problems in Edo State PDP began just immediately after he won the 2020 gubernatorial election, when he choose to, under duress from his followers he came to join PDP with, he could forcefully take over the structure of PDP he ironically already had, the structure that wholeheartedly embraced him and won the election for him after he was tossed off from APC in a manner that would have ended his political career.
Obaseki took the wrong footing like a political toddler and fumbled when he went after the politically experienced likes of Chief Dan Orbih, Rt. Hon. Ogbiede-Ihama and some major LGA chairmen in the state under the guise that they were against him for wanting to harmonize the Party’s constitutionally and legally elected excos before he joined with his APC followers.
He was met with an implacable defense as these stakeholders defended the constitution of the party with all the necessary guts they could muster.
And in his rabid show of uncultured power, the version of corrupt and absolute power, which had always been his hallmark, he went after Governor Wike through one of his youthful commissioners as a defeatist ploy to cover for his failure to subject PDP in Edo State. He blamed Governor Wike for his self-inflicted woes in Edo State.
He accused Governor Wike of controlling Edo State PDP. This was the straw that broke his own back because it went to prove beyond doubt that the PDP stakeholders in Edo State were not the issue as was peddled in the news, but him – Obaseki.
Our correspondent report investigation revealed that the PDP governors could not process within themselves how Obaseki could have taken his manic attacks thus far when Governor Wike was instrumental to his victory in the 2020 election.
Apart from negotiating with the party to allow him to run, Gov Wike supported him financially to be able to challenge the APC that had a large vast financial war-chest.
It was reliably gathered that Obaseki’s unnecessary attack against Governor Wike piqued him against PDP governors in the country particularly governors from the South-South region, which was further compounded by his refusal to sign the Anti-Grazing Bill that was agreed upon at the Asaba Declaration.
They looked at him with disdain and scorn after this agreement was made but went to Buhari to be begging for funds for one ‘livestock impossible.’
He acted as the betrayal he was known for. He acted the way he betrayed Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and the way he betrayed PDP in Edo State.
To crown his antics up, while the PDP governors and even their APC counterparts are routing for a southern candidate for the presidency, Governor Godwin Obaseki has continued in his solo moves though well known to these governors, routing for a northern presidency with the hope he will be made the vice president in an event that his preferred northern candidate wins.
Although his poor performance and perversive ways of betrayal do not scale him to that pedestal, politicians are always blinded to facts.
And again, he does not enjoy the relationship of the PDP National Working Committee(NWC) members under the leadership of Prof. Ayu where Chief Dan Orbih has fortunately shown some immeasurable influence as a member.
The committee members are not merely unhappy with Obaseki because of his attitude to those he met in the party but are seriously concerned about his behavior and attitude towards the constitution of the Party, truthlive.net learned.
The erstwhile Executive Committee of the party had warned him against his illegal harmonization to no avail. Just yesterday, his aides were seen carrying forms all about wards for PDP members to sign to hoodwink them into the illegal harmonization. And one could understand that the warning of the illegality of harmonization of excos by the NWC to Ekiti State in extension is to Edo State because both are embroiled in the same illegalities.
These and others have made Governor Godwin Obaseki an isolated person in the community of PDP governors. They no longer trust him, truthlive.net was reliably informed by a close aide of one of the Governors from the Southern states.
He is now boxed into his small world in Benin city, Edo State where his lifelong dedication is to fight the Edo State PDP to a destructive end if he is allowed.
So, as it were, Obaseki is trying to find a ‘home'(as they say in politics) back in APC. This wishful thinking is not without hurdles: Obaseki betrayed Comrade Oshiomhole in APC and this would be his first legacy hurdle in joining the party back. Once beaten twice shy, they say.
It will be very difficult for Oshiomhole, who has declared his interest in running for Senate in Edo North Senatorial District, and his supporters to accept him back into the party with full confidence. Secondly, there are several hyenas and jackals in Edo State APC that will want to tear him up if he chooses that route.
The House of Assembly members-elect he made sure were not sworn in till date won’t embrace him. The likes of Washington Osifo, Comrade Editor, and co are prowling around within the party to remove his skin if he attempts to join the party.
Thirdly, apart from being a sitting governor, he no longer has any electoral value in the state having dispatched and discarded, on his own, the huge goodwill of the people before the 2020 election where the propaganda that caught the people was that he was fighting both those who wish that he should share the Edo State funds and Godfatherism.
But today, he is not just a Godfather, he is acting like an Emperor of no mean dictatorial tendencies, and also sharing money with his followers just to fight PDP.
Lastly, if he does run back to the APC and the PDP wins the majority in the House of Assembly in the state, he will face the prospect of being impeached.
So the hurdles before him, even as the Edo State PDP members are already wishing him farewell and singing the viaticum for him, he knows he is faced with seemingly insurmountable hurdles.
