Embattled Deputy Governor of Edo State, Comrade Philip Shaibu, has reportedly travelled to the United States amid alleged plot by the state governor and his loyalists to use the State House of Assembly to impeach him.
Shaibu’s journey to America happened as lawmakers loyal to the state governor have launched a series of meetings to perfect the impeachment plot.
The lawmakers in the governor’s camp have, according to insiders, begun a drive for signatures with which they planned to reinforce their petition and push through a resolution to impeach the character of the deputy governor and set the stage for his eventual removal from office.
The governor’s camp has reportedly approached 12 members of the Edo State House of Assembly to canvass the impeachment of the deputy governor, according to the governor’s immediate past commissioner for communication and orientation, Barrister Andrew Emwanta.
Speaking in an interview on Channels TV, Emwanta disclosed that a strategy meeting of the House members and their sponsors had been scheduled for Abuja on Sunday to perfect the impeachment plot against the deputy governor.
But Enwanta claimed during the Channel TV interview that “12 members of the House of Assembly were approached, and you know that among the 12, the deputy governor has one or two loyalists who leaked the plot.
“You know they need 16 members. So four other members were to be sourced from the eight APC members but when they saw that the plot will leak once the APC people are aware, there was a final plan for a meeting to hold on the 6th of this month in Abuja where four members’ signatures would have been forged, impeachment plot would be arranged and if the deputy governor was not comfortable with whatever would have happened he would be told to go to court.
But you know that when you impeach a deputy governor, it is very difficult to bring him back because the judicial process is very long.”
Recall that the embattled deputy governor had, on Friday, secured an order from a Federal High Court in Abuja ordering Governor Obaseki and the State House of Assembly to stay action on the alleged impeachment plot against him.
Meanwhile, there were reports doing the rounds that the political feud between the governor and his deputy was not unconnected to the 2024 governorship ambition of the former.
Shaibu, from Edo North, is planning to succeed his boss in 2024; whereas the governor is not disposed to his deputy ambition.
The governor, it was learnt, is looking elsewhere for his successor. He is reportedly looking at Edo Central and in a worse case scenario at Edo South for his successor.
But Shaibu, from.Edo North, knowing the control the governor exercises on the structure of their faction of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the state, is perfecting his plans to dump the PDP.
Edo State is divided into three senatorial districts – South, Central, and North. Governor Obaseki, who is from Edo South, succeeded Comrade Adams Oshiomhole from Edo North in 2016, who is from the same Local Government as Philip Shaibu.
An online medium had said in a report that the deputy Governor aware of the zoning system in PDP, Shaibu went into talks with the All Progressives Congress (APC) and members of the PDP from the State, who had decamped to the APC.
Shaibu reportedly unveiled his political moves immediately after the 2023 presidential election by forming a campaign group in all the Wards across the State.
An insider familiar with the development in Government House, who confirmed the feud, said Governor Obaseki had consistently maintained that it was not time for politics so that “governance does not suffer.”
According to the report, he had insisted that at the appropriate time, attention would be given to politics.
However, the governor, the report added, maintained that “he (Shaibu) followed established protocol. Since then, he has been on the warpath by sponsoring Enwanta Adaze, a former disgruntled Commissioner, who is one of his stooges, to attack the governor.”