•You require psychiatric evaluation, Edo govt replies
Adedayo Akinwale
The Tinubu/Shettima Presidential Campaign Council, has described the statement credited to Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State, that the country would break if the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) won the 2023 presidential poll, as insensitive and reckless.
But in a swift reply, the Edo State government said the ruling party and its minions were either living in another planet or required psychiatric evaluation over their attempt to fault Obaseki’s assessment of the state of the nation.
Obaseki had while inaugurating the Edo State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) Presidential Campaign Council, said Nigeria would break up if the APC won the presidential election.
However, reacting in a statement yesterday, one of the spokespersons of the APC council, Festus Keyamo, said by making the statement, Obaseki has clearly shown that he must be one of the elements within PDP not only misleading his candidate and party but also enabling them towards inevitable electoral doom.
According to him, “This is to our delight, but we worry that if elected, they will inflict the same divisive spirit on our country as a whole. This is coming from a governor, who turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to the outrageous and divisive statement made by his presidential candidate in Kaduna a few days ago calling for Northerners not to vote for Yoruba or Igbo candidates.
“Obaseki and his cohorts, like Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State, obviously sold their souls for the Biblical pot of porridge by violating the zoning principles in their own constitution, thereby, causing the present implosion within their party – an implosion that he now wishes to project on the country.”
Keyamo stressed that Obaseki’s exit from APC to the PDP was a signal of peace within the ruling party and the beginning of the unending crises within the PDP.
But the Edo government, while replying, said, “The party’s gang of hirelings, including a once-upon-a-time human rights activist continue to pollute the public space with their foul and distasteful takes on the governor’s comment while failing to properly read the room to know that the governor spoke the mind of majority of Nigerians, who have in the last seven years been impoverished by the APC disastrous misrule.
“What part of the call for reawakening by Governor Godwin Obaseki is the APC and their minions calling to question? Are Nigerian’s not victims of the party’s calamitous handling of the country’s affairs, which has today made the country the poverty capital of the world, with a disarticulate economy, excruciating debt burden and a hapless population pushing their way through insecure communities, dilapidated road network, among other failings?
“When in April, 2021, Governor Obaseki raised the alarm that the federal government was printing money to run the economy and warned that if such practices continued, the Naira was heading to N1000 to $1 as against the rate of N500 to $1 at that time, APC and their lackeys screamed blue murder, playing the ostrich and denying the obvious. But today, what does $1 exchange against the Naira? Is N800 to $1 not equivalent to the warning the governor issued about a year ago?
“Without any equivocation, we want to state in full support of His Excellency, Governor Godwin Obaseki, that Nigerians must by any means necessary stop the APC at the ballot from getting to Aso Rock to prevent the unfortunate decent to a failed state.”
