Rahman Owokoniran, the immediate past acting national vice chairman, Southwest, of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), says the recent impeachment of Phillip Shaibu as deputy governor of Edo State would not affect the party’s chances in the September gubernatorial election.
Shaibu, who was elected alongside Governor Godwin Obaseki in 2016 and 2020 was impeached by the state Assembly after about a year of disagreements with the governor over his succession plan.
Reacting in an interview with BusinessDay Sunday, Owokoniran noted that Shaibu may have deserved what he got, because he was not calculative in his pursue of the PDP’s gubernatorial ticket and was too desperate.
The PDP chieftain said he was surprised that the former deputy governor behaved irrationally in his bid to succeed Governor Obaseki, especially when it was obvious that the Governor had already made his choice on who would get the party’s gubernatorial ticket.
According to him, “I don’t know the situation, but the deputy governor pushed his luck too far, you may think, let the governor allow him, but if the governor knows Shaibu would do too much damage for his party winning the governorship election in the state, he may find it imperative that he leave the office.
“For the deputy governor, I’m amazed he has to go to the extent he went fighting for the gubernatorial ticket, as the running mate of the present governor; if he finds you worthy he would put you there.
“If he does not put you there, it means he doesn’t want you to succeed him.
“The constitution of the party is there; follow the due process if you defeat his candidate it is ok, but don’t say because he did not support your candidacy , you want to truncate the whole process. Shaibu may have deserved what he got”.
Speaking further on the chances of the party in the September poll, Owokoniran said the impeachment of Shaibu would not affect the chances of PDP because it is obvious that he does not have the backing of other chieftains and gubernatorial aspirants in the state.
He pointed out that Shaibu may do some damage, but he would have done great damage for himself; because he could have still negotiated for the position of a senator.
“He could have negotiated that; I believe he was not wise in pursuing the gubernatorial ticket, he was so narrow-minded”,
“In the political calculation, because some people are leaving the party does not necessarily mean that the party would lose the election, because the exist of some individuals may promote peace.
“There was ten aspirants, nine of them decided that they would not take part in the process again, after the party delivered the gubernatorial candidate, I thought Shaibu would have attracted sympathy from any of the nine candidates when he was conducting the primary to himself, but it was not the case.
It show that he is alone.
“The way I see it, he may even lose his ward, what the party needs to do is to make sure that the other nine stay and work for the candidate. If the other aspirants work for the PDP, we can win the election”
Speaking on the controversy trailing the Lagos-Calabar high way project, Owokoniran said it was unconstitutional for the federal government to award the contract for the construction of the road to a contractor without subjecting it to a bidding process.
“The aspect that borders me is that it did not go through the due process, even the President knows it is a violation of the constitution.
“What we see now is that they want to use the back door to budget a large sum for this project.
“Transparency is missing, it is wrong our President should not have gotten himself caught into such a messy deal”.
