The Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, has offered reasons why he shunned the meeting of the South South Governors’ Forum, which held in Abuja on Sunday.
The emergency meeting was called principally to react to the decision of the Federal Government to put on trial the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen.
In a statement on Monday by hisChief Press Secretary, Crusoe Osagie, Obaseki, who was the only one absent among his colleagues, said the meeting was a Peoples Democratic Party affair.
Obaseki, elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress, said: “The Abuja meeting of governors of Delta, Rivers, Cross River, Akwa Ibom and Bayelsa states, on the corruption trial of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen, was a meeting of governors of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and not a meeting of south-south governors,” the media aide said.
“Chairman of the Edo state chapter of the PDP, chief Dan Orbih is economical with the truth and most uncharitable to the personality of governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo state, with his unnecessary attacks on the Edo state governor.
“Chief Orbih should tell Edo people the last time the south-south governors’ meeting held, how many times the meeting was held in 2018 and its agenda for 2019.
“Governor Obaseki is committed to the wellbeing of Edo people and our brothers and sisters in our sister South-South states and all Nigerians, and will support any meeting, devoid of political colouration, that genuinely seeks to improve the welfare of people of the south-south region and elsewhere in the country.
“Obaseki will not attend a PDP governors meeting like the one held in Abuja last Sunday, but will attend meetings that are not politically-tainted, and called to proffer time-tested solutions to the developmental challenges faced by the millions of Edo and other people of the south-south region.”