There is no end in sight to the fierce battle for the control of the political structures of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Edo State chapter between the Governor Godwin Obaseki’s camp and the faction led by Chief Dan Orbih, national vice chairman (south-south) of the party.
The ceaseless struggle for party structures between the old PDP members, popularly known as the Legacy Group and the new PDP members which comprises those people who followed Governor Obaseki from the APC to the PDP in 2020. They are regarded as new because the old PDP members have refused to integrate them into the mainstream of the party.
For this reason, there has been internal political squabbles between the two groups which recently culminated in conducting parallel party primaries.
Intervention into the matter by the national leadership of the party is yet to yield any positive results.
Worst still, both sides are in courts over the crisis.
Fears are rife that Edo PDP may receive same treatment as Zamfara or Rivers States, respectively, in the forthcoming presidential election because of the lingering crisis.
But as at the moment, the Legacy Group is having the upper hand. This is so because it was the Orbih led faction that was favoured to participate in the recently held presidential convention of the PDP in Abuja.
The Obaseki’s group which was earlier cleared to vote in the presidential primary, was later disqualified due to superior arguments from the Legacy Group.
Sincerely, despite numerous court admonitions, the convention rights to vote, was the crowning glory of the conflict. Embarrassingly, but not surprising that the leadership of the party eventually acknowledged the judgements and rulings of the different courts on Edo PDP and decided to bar the Obaseki’s faction that was earlier advertised as authentic delegates and promptly substituted them with delegates from Dan Orbih’s faction.
This seemingly moral victory is that PDP has recognized all the candidates produced by Dan Orbih’s faction, during the recent primaries, pending any unsavory court pronouncements.
The implications of this development is that, if the Governor’s faction are unable to upturn these herculean legal burdens, Governor Godwin Obaseki will enter next year’s electoral battle with strangers and will end his tenure with hostile members of state and national assemblies.
The RELIANCE gathered that at the presidential convention ground when the Obaseki’s group temporarily received the green light to participate in the primary election, his elated supporters quickly changed Governor Obaseki’s nickname from ‘Wake and See’ to ‘Emanton’ which means ‘Iron’.
But when the table changed, following the acceptance of the Legacy Group members as the authentic delegates for the presidential primary election, the overjoyed members nicknamed their leader, Chief Dan Orbih as the ‘Iron Bender’.
Nevertheless, a source close to Governor Obaseki told The RELIANCE that “the first battle has ended but the next phase is war. In this war there will be no retreating and no surrendering. Our opponents can rejoice now but it will be our turn to jubilate when the political war is over.”
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