An aide to Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo, who pleaded anonymity, on Monday, said the deputy governor, Rt. Hon. Philip Shaibu, was not locked out of his office because he already knew his office was relocated two weeks ago to No 7 Dennis Osadebey Avenue.
According to him, Shaibu was only out to make trouble at Government House.
According to him, “He (Shaibu) only came to make trouble. There is nothing like him being locked out of his office. His office has been relocated over two weeks ago and he himself carried the story about that.
“He has an office and he relocated there and sent the story out so you people should ask him why did he come to Government House today to make trouble? He was forcing himself into an office that is not his own.
“He came here to make trouble. His office is there, if he had gone there and he was locked out then it will be an issue. He came to Government House purposely to come and cause trouble”.
The faceoff between Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State and his deputy, Rt. Hon. Philip Shaibu, took a dramatic turn on Monday as Shaibu was denied access to his office in the Government House.
Reports had it that the altercation between the deputy governor and security operatives in Government House created tension that led to the security agents turning back anybody who could not properly identify him or herself.
The altercation was said to have started at about 8a.m when Shaibu accompanied by some of his personal aides and security details drove into Government House and met the entrance gate to his office locked.
According to an eyewitness, “The gate to the office of the deputy governor and the main entrance leading to the storey building was locked with chains and heavy padlocks but Shaibu and his aides waited for about an hour and left.”
It was gathered that Shaibu made frantic calls trying to reach the governor but to no avail and he was thereafter said to have had some discussions with the state Commissioner of Police and the state’s Director of Department of State Services (DSS), alerting them of how he was locked out from his office.
He was also said to have summoned the Government House camp commandant identified as Ibrahim Babatunde, a Superintendent of Police, and asked him why he was locked out of his office.
Babatunde was said to have told the deputy governor that it was a directive from above, adding that the CSO of Government House, Williams Wabba, would be in a better position to explain.
But as at the time the deputy governor and those with him were at the Government House premises, it was not clear whether Williams responded to his calls.
However, a report believed to have emanated from Governor Obaseki’s allies claimed that Shaibu tried to force himself into the governor’s office even when he was told that the governor was not around.
The report stated that all entreaties by the security operatives to him to “kindly go back and call the governor if he wanted to see his principal were rebuffed. Instead, he kept pushing the gate, causing a scene.”
It would be recalled that at the peak of the crisis between the two, Obaseki relocated the office of the deputy governor outside Government House to No 7 Dennis Osadebey Avenue and the civil servants in the office of the deputy governor, last week, officially relocated to the new facility that once housed the Edo State Procurement Agency.
The crisis between the two came to the fore about two months ago when Shaibu instituted a suit at the Federal High Court in Abuja, requesting that the court stops a purported plan to stop him from functioning in office as the deputy governor of the state, denying him attendance of exco meetings and then impeaching him.
But Shaibu penultimate week in a statement withdrew the suit due to the intervention by traditional and religious leaders particularly the Catholic Archbishop of Benin, Archbishop Augustine Akubeze.