The Edo State Governor, Mr Godwin Obaseki has said that lawlessness on the part of some leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) informed his decision to dump the party.
Obaseki had in June, defected to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) where he secured the party’s ticket to prosecute his reelection.
The governor, who spoke on Saturday in Benin City, the state capital during the flag off of his campaign, said he would not return to the lawless ways of the APC, no matter the provocation.
Addressing a crowd of supporters at the campaign venue, the governor said, “We left them because of their lawlessness. We will not, no matter how provoked, resort to the same lawlessness. I want to thank you and assure you that God has given us the victory”.
In his address, which was monitored by our correspondent on the African Independent Television (AIT), Obaseki promised to transform Edo state, adding that such transformation would lead to the transformation of the country.
The governor said the PDP considered him worthy of the governorship ticket as reward for his record of performance in the past four years.
According to him, his decision to put the people first, above any other interests, cost him the governorship ticket of the APC, saying that his getting the PDP ticket to run the race was a miracle.
He said:
“This mandate that has been given to us is simple. What you (PDP) are saying as a party is, we like what you have done in the last four years, please go back and continue and improve on what you have done.
“In the last four years, we put our people first. Nothing else matters more than our people even though that put us in trouble. But we didn’t care because the voice of our people is the voice of God.
“Because we were working for our people, God Almighty has supported us. That is why we are here today because what has happened to us in the politics of this country can best be described as miraculous.
“We stood up, courageous, believing in God and believing in our people, believing in ourselves. We fought and God searched our hearts and saw that all we were doing was for Him and the people of Edo, so He stood by us.”
The governor promised to unveil his reelection programme – Make Edo Great Again (MEGA) in the the coming days.
