The reinstated Deputy Governor of Edo State, Philip Shaibu, claimed on Sunday that the struggle against his impeachment was to safeguard the office of deputy governor in the country, which has been mocked since the return of democracy in 1999.
He claimed that his reinstatement demonstrated that God was battling for him.
Shaibu, speaking on Sunday following a Thanksgiving ceremony at St. Paul’s Catholic Church in Benin, praised the court decision that overturned his impeachment and reinstated him as a victory for democracy.
Justice James Omotosho of the Federal High Court in Abuja declared last week that Shaibu’s impeachment by the Edo State House of Assembly was unlawful.
The judge reinstated Shaibu and ordered the Inspector General of Police to give him the security he requires to carry out his official duties.
Shaibu, speaking on Sunday, said it was disappointing that some governors continued to treat their deputy with contempt after being elected on the same ticket.
He said it was time for the National Assembly to pass legislation to protect the office of deputy governor from the governor’s whims.
Meanwhile, the PDP national leadership condemned Shaibu’s collaboration with the APC as a dead end.
In a statement on Sunday by its National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, the PDP said, “With his return to the APC, Comrade Shaibu has irredeemably sunk deeper into the abyss of rejection, having at last shown his true colours as belonging to the corrupt, malevolent, and oppressive political platform that relishes in violence, subverting the will of the people, and inflicting pains on Nigerians.
“By confessing that his heart has always been in and returning to the rejected APC, which is imperilled by an unqualified candidate, Comrade Shaibu only validates the widespread opinion that he was not in the governorship race to serve the interest and well-being of the people of Edo State.
“Nigerians now know why Comrade Shaibu had no tangible campaign manifesto, programme, or plan for Edo State but only engaged in actions and utterances aimed to derail the PDP governorship nomination processes and frustrate the will of the majority of the people of Edo State.
“Our party has only pity for Comrade Shaibu for apparently being used and dumped and now on a journey to nowhere, as he is currently facing a stiff rejection in the APC, where he has been reportedly described as ‘a complete political liability and highly cancerous politician that must be avoided in order to prevent him from infesting our party (APC) with his ill-fated, inordinate, desperate, and obnoxious ambition’.”
Shaibu said, “My fight to be reinstated is for all the people occupying the office in the country. The office has been ridiculed since the return of democracy in 1999.
“I will continue to fight to make sure that sanity and respect are brought back to that office. All I am doing is not to earn anything but to make sure that the sanity of the office of the deputy governor is restored in line with the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
“What other deputy governors cannot fight against, I will fight on their behalf so that governors will start respecting that office.”
“I challenged God, and I told Him that I wanted him to prove His power in my life, that people who are anti-God and anti-democracy were at it again, and they wanted to use me as a scapegoat. I told God to show the world that I was truly his son.
“They said they would impeach me and I would go to court, and that by the time judgement came, the tenure would have been over. So, I challenged God to prove to them that they had touched His anointed and that the judgement would come faster than expected. I said I would need the judgement to come before the election.
“By the grace of God, democracy has come to stay, and we that fought for democracy will protect it; anti-democratic forces must be flushed out, and we will succeed.”
