The Edo State people were on the 4th of August, 2023, greeted with the news blazoning all major newspapers around the country that Comrade Phillip Shaibu, the Edo State deputy governor, was in court against the Edo State governor, Godwin Obaseki and others, with the intention of stopping him from being impeached. Although for most of us who had been following event keenly, it didnt come as a rude shock, it was not however expected that the length of their in-bred addition to wars and infighting will go that route.
There have been rumours of both of them not being in very good terms flying around, which was saturated when Phillip was seen in Abuja during the inauguration of the 10th National Assembly on the 11th of June, 2023. It was not only his free flow with the All Progressive Congress, APC, members that spiked the surprise, but the attendance of the after inauguration party organized in honour of Senator Oshiomole and other APC representatives from Edo State. He was in a very gay mood with Senator Oshiomole and others. And this was the same day some commissioners, except those from his immediate Etsako constituency, were being sworn in Edo State. It was obvious he intentionally avoided the home event just as a political defector would do from his communist country and then appear in the West to a grand reception.
After that event, Phillip was also seen in almost the same equivalent mood during Pastor Izi-Iyamu’s daughter’s marriage where who-is-who in Edo APC were present. He easily flowed with them and took pictures with Senator Oshiomole, covering the social media as at that time. To observers, those two events where statement of intent.
The Edo State contemporary political history, on retrospection, cannot be complete without mentioning how Phillip and Obaseki connived to bring Oshiomole down from the height of being the National Chairman of the APC in 2020. This event has entered our national political folklore with the moral lesson of how your created monsters or those who you have helped, if you prefer that, can become your Achilles heel. Today, Oshiomole is almost healed from the heel wounds inflicted on him.
While it was thought within political circles and by pundits that Senator Oshiomole has received Comrade Phillip back into his political fold, which was what was giving him the braggadiccio mein, Phillip was dealt with the biggest blow in his political career last week. While attending a function in Benin City, Senator Oshiomole said APC was not a rehabilitation, which was a reaction to the rumour that Phillip was planning to defect to APC. He said, “About somebody going to court to complain based on suspicion that he was about to be impeached by the state House of Assembly, I don’t know how court adjudicates over suspicion.We in APC are satisfied the way we are; we are happy in opposition and we are not about to receive people who are coming because they have lost out. I want to say that there is no IDP camp in APC. So my advice is that those who are having challenges should learn how to respect their bosses. I have always advised people that whoever you work with, be loyal,”
This statement was what has sent Phillip to his political purgatory. He is neither here nor there today.
Even with the fact that he has recently pledged loyalty to his ‘elder brother’, saying his ‘boss is a victim of political jobbers’, the unforgiven Obaseki has been using every avenue and opportunity to malign and destroy his political character. He called him a ‘coup plotter’ to unseat him while addressing PDP faithfuls in Edo North last week, and also called him a ‘manipulator’ while addressing youth in Benin two days ago.
Apart from removing the office of the Internally Generated Revenue, IGR, from under his table, Obaseki has also put machineries in motion to see that Phillip’s sister in-law in the sport’s ministry is probed, as rumour would carry it. It is also rumoured that the recertification of oil and gas stations in Edo State was targeted at Phillip who is alleged to own several stations within the Benin metropolis.
From the look of things, the last have not been heard fron Obaseki concerning this imbroglio. What is uncertain is where will Phillip go from here now that both Obaseki and Oshiomole’s camps are no-go areas, and Obaseki is on long daggers drawn poised for awe and shock.