The Governor of Edo state, Mr. Godwin Obaseki has ordered the arrest of some ward chairmen of the APC, with Oredo Ward 8 chairman, Mr. Sunday Erhabor.
FirstNigeriaTV reports that, The reason for the arrest is as a result of the governor’s denial of his initial orders to the party’s LGA chairmen to communicate to all ward chairmen to compile eight thousand names from each ward to receive stimulus packages from the state government, to enable them comply with the “Stay At Home” order.
Although all the eighteen Local Government Chairmen had passed the order to their ward chairmen, following the the governor’s order, because they lack the financial capacity to take such decision on their own.
Oredo Ward 8 chairman Mr. Sunny Erhabor who was arrested by the State CID on the alleged orders of Obaseki, had reportedly told the Police that the order to compile names was from the local government chairman who had a previous meeting with the Governor where he (Obaseki) gave the order for names to be collated from each wards in Edo State in respect to the ‘now-abandoned stimulus package’.
Obaseki who was said to have backed out of the initial plan and the already politicized stimulus package deal, claims the state lacked the resources to carry out the sham exercise.
It was also gathered that the Governor, who birthed the plan for the stimulus package to be secretly shared among those who share in his second term return interest, was hoping that the Federal Government would disburse funds directly to the State Government for the exercise.
However, to the Governor’s surprise, the Federal Government opted to transfer cash directly to the vulnerable in the society through its Conditional Cash Transfer Program.
According to pundits, this might have informed the Governor to seek the arrest of all LGA party chairmen who supposedly worked according to his initial orders and instructions.
An undisclosed source, revealed that the Governor, who has concluded plans to decamp to another party over his fears of losing the APC ticket, has vowed to deal with the LGA chairmen and weaken the popularity of the APC at the LGA level.
Consequently, Oredo party chairman, Mr. Alabi and Secretary, Mrs. Isekure have gone into hiding sensing that the Governor is after them.