Philip Shaibu, the newly reinstated Deputy Governor of Edo State, has left the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and joined the All Progressive Congress (APC).
On Saturday, July 20, at the APC Edo State National Working Committee of the Edo governorship election meeting, he announced his defect.
Shaibu, 54, announced during the meeting that he intended to defect to the APC, and the National Organising Secretary subsequently accepted him into the party.
This follows Shaibu’s Friday, July 19, allegation that he was refused entry into the state by his principal, Godwin Obaseki.
Two days after being ordered back to his position as deputy governor by the Federal High Court in Abuja, Shaibu made this declaration in an interview with Politics Today on Channels Television.
Shaibu stated “Yesterday, I got intel that the governor has told his men that they must not allow me into town. I am a free-born of Edo State, nobody can stop me from entering Edo State.”
“The constitution does not allow anybody to bar me from entering Edo State, not even when I am a deputy governor. Even if I am an ordinary citizen, I should have a right. I should have freedom.”
Additionally, Shaibu said that Obaseki threatened to destroy him when he announced his desire to run for governor under the PDP in November 2023.
Additionally, the deputy governor charged that the governor was responsible for the Thursday, July 18, attack on his convoy that resulted in the murder of a Benin City police officer. He claimed that Obaseki had attacked him in retaliation for his previous vow to destroy him.
