Edo 2020: APC Governors Fight For Obaseki, Meet Tinubu

By Akinwale Kasali

Governors elected under the platform of the All Progressives Congress, APC, political Party are set to meet the Party National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

The meeting is connected to the Edo State 2020 Governorship ticket.

The meeting is also believed to be a last-minute effort to ensure that the Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, clinches the party’s ticket for the forthcoming governorship election in the State.

The Governors’ emissaries had earlier planned to have the meeting via virtual, but it was necessary to meet the National Leader in person with the policking, brickbats and crisis between the APC National Chairman, Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole and  Obaseki, forcing them to come down to his residence at Bourdillon, Ikoyi, Lagos.

The Magazine gathered through a source that the meeting was at the instance of the Governors, noting that a delegation of the governors would meet with Tinubu to seek his intervention, preparatory to further talks with President Muhammadu Buhari on the issue.

According to the source, “The meeting with Tinubu is essentially to seek his intervention in the crisis rocking the party in Edo State. Part of the conditions being worked on, which the governor is expected to meet, is to swear-in the remaining members of the state House Assembly who have yet to be sworn in.”

About a year after the Assembly was inaugurated, only 10 out of the 24 members of the Assembly had so far been sworn in. This is due to the crisis that surrounded the issuance of the proclamation order of the Assembly by the governor.

In defence of the action, the governor claimed that those who had yet to assume office refused to be sworn in.

Talking about the peace move, a top-ranking party source said, “The train has since left the station. It is too late in the day to find a common ground on the Obaseki issue.”

But another party source said, “In politics, nothing is cast in stone. Old foes can become friends with the right incentives. After all, there are no permanent friends or enemies.”

Some of the APC governors are bent on sticking  their neck for Obaseki, as  they have vowed to do whatever they could do to save Obaseki out of what they call the “gang up against one of them.”

He said the governors would not want Obaseki to be treated “as an outsider when those ganging up against him are not accusing him of non-performance.”