Edo State Deputy Governor, Philip Shaibu, has said there is no room for godfathers in the state. He added that the struggle for the emancipation of the people of the state from the hold of godfathers was ongoing and had come to stay.
Shaibu, in an interview with select journalists at his residence in Benin on Friday, thanked his political mentor and National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Mr Adams Oshiomhole, whom he said spearheaded the struggle.
There had been political disagreements between Shaibu and Governor Godwin Obaseki, on the one hand, and Oshiomhole, who is also a former governor, and some other political figures in the state, on the other hand.
Shaibu, however, noted that he and others were helping him (Oshiomhole) to sustain the struggle, adding that his political differences with the governor had not changed his father-son relationship with the party leader.
He said, “As the deputy governor, I thought I was just to hide behind the governor, but I found out that the struggle for the emancipation of Edo people from the godfather continues.
“The joy I have is that ‘no to godfathers’ has come to stay in Edo. We thank Oshiomhole for leading that struggle. We are helping him to sustain it. Like he said, you need to fight these people till you succeed for you to be able to free resources for the state to deliver dividends of democracy to the people. That is what we are doing.”
The deputy governor, who is celebrating his 50th birthday on Sunday (today), described Oshiomhole as someone he would continue to respect.
Meanwhile, speaking about the governor, Shaibu said learning leadership from both Oshiomhole and Obaseki had made him a better person.
Shaibu added that if he had known most of the things he now knew about the enormous power at the disposal of government, he would have done certain things differently as an activist. Punch