Former Edo State Deputy Governor Philip Shaibu has declared his endorsement of Monday Okpebholo, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, for the upcoming governorship election on September 21 in Edo State.
Shaibu stated that the governorship race initially included three local contenders: himself, Monday Okpebholo, and Olumide Akpata from the Labour Party (LP).
During the 2024 Father’s Day celebration at Saint Paul’s Catholic Church in Benin City, the capital of Edo State, the former deputy governor expressed that after withdrawing from the race, he is now backing his favored local candidate, Monday Okpebholo.
“I will support a homeboy, I came into politics to contest as the governor of Edo State because I need government to return to homeboy – people that understand our plight, people that understand what the people are feeling. Even the United Nations talks about the need for assessment. We don’t want outsiders; we have experimented with outsiders, and it’s not working, so this time around, we want homeboy,” he said, according to Channel TV.
Shaibu’s support for the opposition stems from Edo Governor Godwin Obaseki’s statement that individuals are free to back any candidate in elections. This freedom prompted Shaibu to openly endorse the APC candidate despite being a PDP member. He clarified that this is not a betrayal of his party, pointing out that even Governor Obaseki had ties to both the PDP and the Labour Party in the previous election.
“The governor of Edo State, Godwin Obaseki, says that everybody has the right to support whoever he wants to support, but he forgot also that he doesn’t have the right to stop anybody from whom he wants to support,” he said.
“But I take one part from what he said: we all have the right to support whom we want to support, so it’s my right to decide who I want to support,” he said.
Pulse Nigeria
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