Former National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, has said that Governor Godwin Obaseki, who is the flagbearer of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the coming Edo Governorship elections, is not a threat to his party.
Oshiomhole made the remarks during an interview on Channels TV’s Sunday Politics, while responding to a question about whether Obaseki’s popularity was a threat to his party.
“How can he be a threat? A man who is not even eligible to contest elections? How can a snail be a threat in a race where tigers are involved?,” he said.
The ex-APC chairman had earlier said that he was confident in the party’s governorship candidate, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu’s ability to lead the state on the path of progressive development if elected in the September 19 governorship election.
Meanwhile, the Deputy Governor of Edo State, Mr Philip Shaibu, has accused Oshiomhole, of wanting to covertly seek a third term in office as the governor of Edo State through his alleged surrogate, Osagie Ize-Iyamu.
Shaibu, in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media, Benjamin Atu, titled, ‘Oshiomhole seeking the third term as a governor through Ize-Iyamu,’ said the former National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress was seeking a third term by proxy.
He said, “The truth is that Ize-Iyamu is merely a stooge. The real man seeking the governorship position is Adams Oshiomhole who has perfected the plan to betray democracy by seeking a third term in office. The price that Oshiomhole will pay for projecting Ize-Iyamu is an outright rejection.
“Oshiomhole is displaying blind compassion with a specific pledge to return the state to the path of backwardness with failed institutions where individuals will be more powerful than government institutions with an analogue system of operations. Technological development has since left Oshiomhole behind in the scheme of things.”
The deputy governor said the state had a choice between policies of the heart by Governor Godwin Obaseki and policies of the head as currently being propagated by enemies of the state.
“The people of Edo State subscribed voluntarily to the principle of Obaseki because they have seen these principles at work all over the state. We cannot risk the future of Edo State with a man’s shrunken aspirations.
“Our campaign is based on the affirmation of what we have done and still capable of doing, by drawing our strength from the masses to deal with all our vulnerabilities,” he said.