Former deputy governor of Edo state, Phillip Shaibu says his former boss, Godwin Obaseki converted his public service knowledge into duping and stealing the money of Edo state.
Shaibu who had a frosty relationship with Obaseki during the tail end of their administration because of his governorship ambition, also accused Obaseki of transacting with the lives of people during his time as governor.
Speaking in an interview with The Sun, he said “When I tell my story, people that are close, because I have die-hard people that are still with me, they will tell you they are ready, some of them even lost their jobs, they didn’t care because they knew what we went through in the office. So, I am clean to the extent that if you open the books of Edo State financially, you won’t see my name”.
“But like I told Obaseki when we went to PDP meeting, I told them there that if Obaseki and I go to the EFCC, if I spend one hour in EFCC, it is because maybe there is administrative things that I need to do. I will leave him there and come back because he converted his public sector knowledge into duping and stealing Edo State money. He was transacting with everything, even transacting with the lives of people”.
“That is why I don’t have problem with Asue as a person. I have problem with their attitude, transactional attitude. And I saw Asue as another Obaseki and I even see Asue worse than Obaseki. It is all transaction. And we don’t need transactional people again in Edo State because if he brings another transactional person like Obaseki in Edo, we are doomed for life”.
Shaibu also accused Obaseki of duping him the sum of $300,000 which he told him he will use to lobby party leaders but failed to do so.
“For me, I was not in government for self-aggrandisement. I am a team player. Anything that will make the team function, any team that I belong; I can sacrifice everything to keep that team working. That is how I was brought up. Anything that I am in, for the benefit of the team, I am ready to make sacrifice to make the team functional. For me, it was not about me, it was about our team and he was the leader. For me, give him the ticket, we will follow. Even if I didn’t get it, I was ready to give it”.
“Ask the people that were in our team. Some of them said ah, Oga, why you go talk like that? I said no, let them give him the ticket. If they give him the ticket, fine. So, it was not about whether he begged for me for deputy. No, it was about me saying I am ready to even sacrifice it in so far as they give him the ticket. And I said it to many of the leaders. I said, let him take”.
“I contributed money. I contributed $300,000. He collected $300,000 from me to say he was going to add to $700,000 to go and lobby them in Port Harcourt. But we later found out from the zonal PDP Chairman that he never gave them any money. So, he even duped me (general laughter). And it took me like seven months to be able to pay back that money where I collected it from”.
“I was paying instalmentally to be able to pay that money. That was why I had to raise alarm because I was paying for money that they said was not used. And this money was not returned back. Till today, he didn’t return the money back. You can ask Chief Dan Orbih and Ogbeide-Ihama. I am calling names now”.
