Governors And Deputies at War
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 BucknorAkerele 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 BucknorAkerele 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 Commanderin-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 highprofile 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
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