Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State has asked the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, to recuse himself from the nomination processes of the June 22 governorship primary of the state.
Speaking on Wednesday when he returned his nomination form to the national secretariat of the APC, Obaseki described Oshiomhole as an interested party.
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“I am using this opportunity to call on Comrade Oshiomhole to recuse himself from the Edo nomination process because he is an interested party.
“It is against natural justice for a man to be a judge in his own case.
“So, I think the honourable thing to do is to recuse himself, and let us have a free process,” he said.
When asked to respond to allegations that he (Obaseki) betrayed Oshiomohle after the later worked to bring him to power in 2016, the governor rather described the national chairman as ‘a bigger betrayer.’
He said: “In life everybody get helped, everybody get assisted.
“The person you talked about (Oshiomhole) had no money when he left labour to contest.
“We knew what we did to make him governor.
“I sacrificed eight years of my life pro-bono, I collected no Kobo to serve him (Oshiomhole) in Edo.
“Today we know what we have built because of where we started from.
“So when you talk of betrayal, the biggest betrayal can be when people betray a cause, when they betray an idea.
“That is the greatest betrayal of all. It is like betraying God.
“When you said to God, this is what I stand for and then God gives you power, then you turn around and do the exact opposite.
“There is no greater betrayal than that.
“So, when you talk about betrayal let us be very clear.
“I want to put it on record that I am grateful, he assisted me just as I assisted him.
“I know the sacrifices we made to make him the national chairman.
“So what are we talking about?”
Asked about his trip to Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and the presidency, Obaseki said: “The reason I went to see our national leader is that I don’t want the party torn apart.
“I am a man of peace.
“For me and my colleague governors, we cannot see a party we built destroyed, we cannot see a ruling party be so weakened and whatever it will take to secure peace, to secure harmony in the party, we are prepared to, I am prepared to make.
“That is why I joined my colleagues to go and see the leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to assure him that we are all working for the same cause, we are all working to build our party.
“From 26 states, we now have 20.
“We don’t want to lose any more state, there is really no reason to.
“We should all drop our egos and work for our party and the unity of our country.”
Obaseki also denied the speculations that he was planning to join the opposition PDP.
Oshiomhole’s media aide, Victor Oshoke was unavailable for comment as his numbers were unavailable, even as the National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Mallam Lanre Issa Onilu declined comments.
