September 24, (THEWILL) – The relationship usually starts on a buoyant note with lots of backslapping, clinking of champagne flutes after securing their party’s nomination and, of course, mutual respect between both parties. They speak with one voice at campaign grounds, raise one another’s hands in total support, woo and court the same crowd of potential voters and sometimes wear the same traditional dress adorned with party logos. But once in office, the once promising friendship gradually turns sour, resulting in a bitter contest of will between them.
Governors and their deputies having a showdown while in office have been part and parcel of Nigeria’s political space. In many of the instances, only one of them come out unscathed, leaving the other completely emasculated and most times consigned to political oblivion thereafter.
Who remembers Mrs. Kofoworola Bucknor-Akerele today? Yes, she was running mate to Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu of Lagos state from 1999 – 2003. Both of them were in Alliance for Democracy at the time, handily winning the governorship election. But before her term ended in 2003, something snapped between Bucknor-Akerele and her principal.
She plainly became a pariah at Government House Alausa in the heat of the face-off. Her invitations to government functions became fewer and fewer leaving the hapless supposed second-in-command of the state to just sit around in her office practically doing nothing. She seldom had a one-one-one meeting with the governor let alone discuss state matters with him. It got so bad at some point that whoever was in charge stopped supplying the sheaf of daily newspapers due her office as deputy governor.
Against that backdrop, Bucknor-Akerele had no chance for re-election. The same fate befell her replacement Femi Pedro, who also had a fallout with Governor Tinubu for his second tenure from 2003 – 2007. Mr. Tinubu has moved on and up to become president of Nigeria and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. Though Pedro made a stab at becoming governor of Lagos state back in time, nobody talks about him these days as a political heavyweight in the state he was once deputy governor.
Two of Pedro’s colleagues in government today are likely to go the same way he did in Lagos state back then. And it could happen anytime from now. They are Philip Shaibu and Lucky Orimisan Aiyedatiwa of Edo and Ondo states respectively. In Shaibu’s case, he may be technically out of a job as the number two man in the state with the inspiring motto “Heartbeat of the Nation.”
Ever since he instituted a suit at a High Court in Abuja against his boss and the two principal officers of the Legislative and Judiciary arms in Edo state, all has not been well with Shaibu. He’d claimed that Governor Obaseki, Blessing Agbebaku Speaker of the House and Joe Acha Chief Judge had concluded plans to impeach him as deputy governor. Therefore, he prayed the court for an order of mandamus to stop the impeachment proceedings.
It turned out there was nothing of such by the parties in question, leading to the strained relations between Shaibu and Obaseki. A notoriously reticent politician seen more as a technocrat, Obaseki took his deputy’s action for what it was: disloyalty of the highest order and even backstabbing. After all, here was someone he personally handpicked as his running mate when he defected to the Peoples Democratic Party from the All Progressives Congress for his re-election in 2020.
The divide between the formerly comradely pair is now so deep it is impossible to see them uniting as before. Shaibu tried to gatecrash a high-profile meeting Governor Obaseki convened in his private residence in Benin sometime in July, insisting that his position as the deputy permits him to attend. Obaseki coolly rebuffed him, telling the beleaguered politician he was not invited to the gathering at his private quarters.
In August during the historic 60th anniversary of the creation of Midwest Region, Edo State Government barred Shaibu’s media crew from the venue and then deployed them to the Ministry of Information and Orientation from where they are to take instructions regarding covering government functions and events.
Not long after that, the state government relocated Shaibu’s office to less dignifying quarters outside Denis Osadebay Avenue (Government House) GRA in Benin. In a bold attempt to reclaim his official quarters at Government House, Shaibu bee-lined it there last week only to be locked out with stern security officers barricading his way.
Hoping for public sympathy, Shaibu quickly called up a television crew from Channels to record him at the security checkpoint while he put a call through to the HoS who promptly reminded him that a new office had been provided for his use.
“I have not received any letter to that effect,” the deputy governor replied, inadvertently participating in his own public humiliation. No problem. He got his letter of relocation that evening, effectively cutting him off from his previously princely office in Government House.
Shaibu’s carefully calibrated defenestration is ongoing with some predicting the very thing he feared in the beginning: impeachment. If that happens, he stands to lose all the benefits and entitlements that should accrue to him as deputy governor for nearly eight years.
His current travails has elicited responses from politicians and political analysts in and outside Benin City, many of them laying the blame squarely at the doorstep of the deputy governor. Erstwhile governor of the state Adams Oshiomhole and now a senator recently publicly scuttled his former godson’s plan to defect to APC, (“APC is not a rehabilitation camp for losers,” Oshiomhole famously said.)
Onetime Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to Oshiomhole but now Communications & Development Expert, Tony Iyare, weighed in on the matter with an opinion headlined “Edo: Shaibu’s Burden of Bearing His Cross” published in THISAGE of September 17.
“Who will save him from a self-inflicted conundrum?” Iyare began in his well-presented article and then went on to relate how rosy the relationship was between Obaseki and his deputy in the early days compared to the iciness between them now.
“It will be intriguing,” Iyare continued, “to see how Shaibu saunters through this debacle even after withdrawing the ill-advised suit against Obaseki and other principal officers from the court. He’s not only stripped of his larger than life image of a political dinosaur but now has to operate from a less fancied office from a precinct of Government House. In short, he’s now been made to devour the humble pie. Here was Shaibu who had a flowery leeway with Obaseki and was endowed with privileges and power that no Governor either in the history of Edo or the country has ever conferred on their deputy, yet he squandered it on the altar of pride, ego tripping, pigheadedness and inordinate ambition.”
As the case stands, Shaibu has since accepted his wrongdoing in the matter, on account of which he tendered an apology last week to his boss but after consulting with politicians and sundry advisers in Edo state. Meant to be a mea culpa, he said last week that “I am sorry, please forgive me,” directed at Obaseki for sure.
Despite the belated apology, some still question Shaibu’s sincerity, that he has not shown any remorse whatsoever, any act of wrongdoing by himself but that he was only apologising because he was advised to do so after wide consultations. Whether Obaseki will accept his deputy’s apology is another matter entirely.
Also seeking to appease his boss at the moment is Shaibu’s counterpart in Ondo state Lucky Orimisan Aiyedatiwa equally facing charges of disloyalty to Governor Arakurin Rotimi Akeredolu who only recently returned to Nigeria after convalescing in a hospital in Germany for three months.
There was bound to be some friction between Aiyedatiwa and Akeredolu once the latter left the “Sunshine State” to attend to his health in Europe in June. Like Obaseki did with Shaibu, Akeredolu handpicked the current deputy in place of the impeached one. It has also been bandied around that Shaibu and Aiyedatiwa had plans to succeed their principals as governor come 2024. Not anymore!
For now, both deputies are fighting the toughest battles of their lives with no hope of winning. Headlines in newspapers all through last week and on social media point to a possible impeachment of the deputy governor of Ondo state.
Already, some of his media aides have since been relieved of their duties by Ondo State Government. Part of the reason for their sack is anti-Akeredolu campaign while he was recuperating in Germany. Thinking the governor might just not make it back to State House in Akure, they quickly pitched tent with Aiyedatiwa, urging him to look out for himself as a possible successor. Some were incautious in their campaign against the governor, leaving behind incriminating evidence on social media platforms.
Last week, Ondo State House of Assembly initiated proceedings to impeach Aiyedatiwa for “gross misconduct” though the lawmakers said the letter itself does not equate to impeachment. Chairman of the House Committee on Information Olatunji Oshati pointedly noted that “an allegation letter does not equate to an impeachment verdict.”
Continuing, Oshati let on that “the allegation letter served to the Deputy Governor marks the initiation of the impeachment proceedings…it is essential to remember that this is a procedure rooted in due process, not a hastily conducted impeachment.”
For governors once described by former President Olusegun Obasanjo as wielding power like emperors in their respective states, there is a predictable end in a duel with running mates. It is not hard to see why.
There is no clearly defined Constitutional role for the deputy governor thus making his office more or less a tagalong, “follow, follow” to the governor or, as one former deputy governor uncharitably put it, “spare tyre.”
But can anything be done to dignify the office of the deputy governor? Yes, says Senator Adegbenga Kaka of the APC. In an interview last week with The Punch, the former deputy governor to Olusegun Osoba of Ogun state suggested that “it may be necessary to give a definite role to deputy governors in the Constitution.”
More important to the politician is “mutual trust” which he considers the only way out.
“If as a governor, any party man, even an outsider, should come to badmouth their deputy, it is important for the governor or the deputy to reach out to one another, and possibly in the presence of the character so that they will know that the behaviour doesn’t pay. If some of them are disgraced, others will not engage in such a thing because the bottom line is what do they want to gain?”
On the current rift between Obaseki and Shaibu, Kaka says he is not surprised about it.
“I am not surprised at all because the two of them had a marriage of convenience and when it seemed they were not getting the ticket of the APC, in togetherness they moved to the PDP, forgetting that those who were in the PDP that gave them the platform might also have candidates as of that time and still have aspirants within their folks.”
Once political bedfellows in rain or shine braving the storms together from the onset in 2016 in Edo state, it is now clear the political ties binding Obaseki and Shaibu has since been severed with no hope of ever coming together anytime soon.
About the Author
Michael Jimoh is a Nigerian journalist with many years experience in print media. He is currently a Special Correspondent with THEWILL.
