The state deputy governor, Marvellous Godwins Omobayo, and Olumide Akpata, the Labour Party’s candidate for Edo State’s September 21, 2024, governorship election, disagreed over the claimed invasion of the party’s secretariat and termination of its state leadership.

According to reports, a group of Labour Party members, primarily young people, led by Ken Omusi, the party’s now-suspended youth leader, broke into the party’s Benin City secretariat last Thursday, announced the dismissal of the executive, and proclaimed himself the party’s acting chairman.

Speaking about the incident following the party’s stakeholders’ meeting, Akpata said that Marvelous Omobayo, the State’s deputy governor, was funding the youngsters.

As per his statement, “you are all aware that the present deputy governor to Governor Godwin Obaseki was taken from our folds and appointed by the current governor.

“And, it appears that the current deputy governor in the state is employed for the purpose. He must have assured his paymaster that the Labour Party is decimated, and it does not exist and that once he leaves us, the party would no longer exist. You know people tend to be legends in their own mind.

“The individual who invaded and attacked our secretariat, the suspended youth leader, Ken Omusi we know is with the deputy governor.

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“We have photographic evidence to the effect that they are working together currently, and we know that the incident of the last couple of days is just another part of their scripts to create the impression that there is chaos in the Edo Labour party.

“There is no chaos in the party. We are organized and ready to claim Dennis Osadebay avenue for Edo State.

“As the Labour Party chairman rightly noted, this minion who used to be the youth leader of our party in the state working with the state deputy governor arrived at this secretariat with officers of the Edo State Security Network and with Police officers attached to Edo State Government House.

“So, we are sending a note of warning to those who are orchestrating this confusion, that confusion does not exist here in our party. We are clear in our mind where we are going to Dennis Osadebay avenue.

“We are encouraging our former comrade to ‘dey their lane so that we will also dey our lane’. You don go, dey there.

“Don’t use us to shine. You cannot use us to shine. You don’t have that power. The height that he reached in the Labour Party was as a result of the support of the people.

“And, now that he has decided to cross over to the other party, all well and good but do not attempt to think for one second that any one of us will follow you. We are going nowhere

“We assure him, and we wish him well in his five-month tenure as deputy governor of the state. We don’t wish anybody bad, ‘but if na there he can reach, it is well and good for him.’

“But you cannot destroy Labour Party for your personal success. You cannot destroy Labour Party for your personal ambition. And, before we fall you ‘don fall’.

“‘So dey your lane, we will dey our lane’. I am speaking directly to Engr Marvellous Godwin’s Omobayo. ‘Dey your lane and we dey our lane’”, he said.

The deputy governor of Edo State, Omobayo, retaliated by calling the accusations made against him unjustified and unfounded.

The Labour Party’s candidate for governor, Victor Adefemi, made false, unjustified, and bogus accusations, according to the deputy governor, who made these comments through his chief press secretary.

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According to Omobayo, he was a prominent member of the Labour Party who used his own money and connections to make the party powerful and appealing to Akpata in Edo State.

“I contested as Deputy Governor with Honourable Isaiah Osifo on the platform of Labour Party in 2020 and thereafter, remained committed to the principles of the party leading to my contest for Akoko Edo Federal Constituency in 2023 general election, before the entrance of Barrister Akpata into the party.

“I hereby urge Barrister Olumide Akpata to excuse me from the Labour Party’s crisis.

“Omobayo has no place for violence and hatred in his style of politics, the Labour Party’s candidate should go and verify this.”

Peter Obi’s exit from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had been coordinated by Nyesom Wike, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), according to Paul Ibe, the spokesperson for PDP presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar in 2023.

Ibe stated that Wike resisted Atiku’s request for the PDP to allocate the Southeast as the 2023 presidential ticket zone.

Prior to the 2023 presidential election, Obi left the PDP to run for president as the Labour Party, LP. Obi had been the party’s vice presidential nominee in the 2019 presidential contest.

With more than six million votes, he later emerged as a formidable candidate in the most recent general election.

The main opposition party has not yet managed to address its internal crisis since the PDP and LP were defeated by the All Progressives Congress, or APC, in the 2023 election.

Atiku, according to Ibe, was prepared to assign the Southeast the PDP presidential ticket.

Ibe claimed that Wike was upset by the decision to zone PDP’s ticket to the Southeast in an interview with Seun Okinbaloye for his Mic On program.

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He said: “Atiku did not force Peter Obi out of the party, Wike was instrumental in the exit of Obi because Wike had promoted the zoning of the presidency to the south.

“Atiku Abubakar had said that he was prepared to get himself off the ticket if the party zoned the ticket to the Southeast.

“Wike frustrated that effort because he believed that if it was zoned to the south, not the southeast, he would be in the best position to be able to get the ticket.”

On Saturday, Prince Uche Secondus, a former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), blamed the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister Nyesom Wike’s self-serving pursuit of interests for the ongoing political unrest in Rivers State.

Speaking to reporters in Abuja, Secondus claimed that Governor Siminalaye Fubura’s political issues were primarily the result of the FCT Minister.

He claimed that the outgoing governor caused suffering, loss, and agony to the state, emphasizing that the Minister has not been able to bring any federal projects to Rivers.

Secondus claims that when Fubara chose to stop the state’s theft, he and his estranged godfather had a falling out.

He clarified that those who want unrestricted access to the state’s finances—a request he said the governor has rejected—are the ones behind the current political turmoil destabilizing the state.

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Secondus said, “Wike has been Governor for eight years and is now Minister of the FCT.

“As Minister, what has he, Wike, attracted in terms of Federal projects to our dear State since he assumed office?

“Perhaps misery, grief, and anguish. As governor he supervised the exit of investors from the state due to his draconian policies.

“He had on an occasion mentioned that he is capable of causing a crisis and he is not far from the truth, as he is causing an unfathomable crisis in Rivers State.

“Mrs Patience Jonathan and I worked for his emergence as governor, have we ever breathed down his neck? Instead, what we get is disrespect and insults.

“I call on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to prevail on the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike to stop overheating the Rivers State political atmosphere and allow Fubara to work. Whatever Wike thinks he is, it must be stressed that Rivers people made him.”