Obaseki to Oshiomhole: You’re biased, hear from all sides before taking sides

Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State on Saturday, rejected his indictment by the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, for the crisis in the State House of Assembly.

Obaseki, who succeeded Oshiomhole as governor of the state, accused the APC chair of showing bias with his view that he (Obaseki) played a role in the emergence of the leadership of the State Assembly.

The governor, in a statement through his Special Adviser on Media and Communication Strategy, Mr. Crusoe Osagie, said Oshiomhole “needs to hear from all parties in a matter before taking sides.”

Osagie in the statement said: “We read with utter astonishment a statement credited to the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, with respect to Governor Godwin Obaseki’s alleged role in the inauguration of the Edo State House of Assembly.

“Apart from the fact that he based his conclusion on a totally false and baseless premise, we believe that he could have shown that he does not have a vested interest by simply inquiring from his friend, the governor directly, or any official of the State Working Committee of our party as to what actually transpired.”

Osagie said Oshiomhole’s “failure to satisfy the basic tenets of natural justice, which makes fair hearing from all sides of a matter mandatory, has clearly exposed his bias in this issue.”

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He added: “For the avoidance of doubt, all the decisions relating to the leadership of the Edo State House of Assembly recently elected by the House were taken by the State Working Committee and leaders of the party from across the state.”

He added: “In deference to the rule of party supremacy, which the National Chairman so eloquently professes, the governor and all party members are obliged to respect the party’s decision, as we expect the National Chairman to also do.”

Oshiomhole had, on Friday in Abuja, described the circumstances which produced Mr. Frank Okiye as the State Speaker as a shame.

“I am ashamed to talk about it but there is nothing to hide,” he said and wondered why ‘somebody’ wanted minority members of the House to pick the Speaker, while leaving out the majority. “In our own case we have 24/24 all of them APC but somebody wants a particular person as a Speaker, 19 out of 24 are opposed to this person,” he said.

The Bauchi legislators had gone to brief him on how the PDP minority members of the State Assembly allegedly acting in concert with a few APC members and Governor Bala Muhammad met secretly and picked the Speaker of the House.