Indication that the Edo State chapter of the All Progressives Congress crisis over governorship ticket will be a fight to finish, has emerged, with the opening of a second secretariat for the party in Benin City.
The secretariat which was opened by pro-Oshiomhole faction of the party in the state, is less than two kilometers from the original office of the party.
was officially opened with fanfare, prayers and thanksgiving service on Tuesday with several leaders and members of the APC in the state led by two governorship aspirants – former deputy governor of the state, Pius Odubu and Saturday Uwalekhue.
Other governorship aspirants could not attend as they were said to be in Abuja in solidarity with Oshiomhole.
Meanwhile, the leadership of the faction loyal to Governor Godwin Obaseki and led by Anselm Ojezua, has insisted that it is the legally recognised faction of the party and the secretariat it occupies is the only recognised APC state secretariat in the state.
The spokesperson of the faction loyal to Oshiomhole, Chris Azebamwan, however countered Ojezua’s position, saying that Col. David Imuse (rtd) is the acting chairman of the party, insisting that Ojezua had been legitimately removed.
To buttress his point, Azebamwan said it was Imuse that attended the last NEC meeting of the party as Edo State chairman and that he was also there when state chairmen visited President Muhammadu Buhari.
“After we removed Anselm Ojezua in November last year, armed thugs took over the secretariat in their thinking that we want to eject Ojezua from the office, but we know that no Edo citizen’s blood is worth the political ambition of anybody because we were aware that all they were doing was in furtherance of Mr Governor’s second term ambition.
“So, we decided that at the end of the day the building does not make the secretariat. If the national secretariat of our party wants to get in touch with our party in Edo State, they will get in touch with us wherever we are located. It is fortunate that the campaign office of Mr President for his second term is available, so we decided to adopt that place as our operational base,” he said.
But in his comment, spokesman for the faction loyal to Obaseki, Pastor Joseph Osagiede, said: “I am not aware of any other state secretariat. That is not allowed by law; our party does not allow for two secretariats so that is illegal.”