The Governor of Edo State Godwin Obaseki may have moved against his deputy, Philip Shaibu, over the latter’s gubernatorial ambition.
The signs of a worsening relationship between the Governor and his deputy emerged with the drastic reduction of budgetary allocation to the office of the deputy governor.
A look at the 2024 Appropriation bill signed into law on Friday, December 15, 2023 showed that a paltry N300m was allocated to the Deputy Governor’s Office.
In the same budget, N19 billion was allocated to the governor’s office, N8 billion, to the Secretary to the State Government’s N13 billion to the House of Assembly and N968 million to the Office of the Head of Service.
The Network gathered that the drastic reduction in budgetary allocation to the office of the Deputy Governor has divided the Assembly between loyalists of both factions.
Lawmakers loyal to Shaibu were said to have raised issues with the budget describing it as unfair but were overruled by the Speaker, Rt. Hon Blessing Agbebaku and his supporters.
Specifically, in budget, the sum of N19, 148, 177, 584 was allocated to the Governor’s office, while the office of the deputy governor was allocated the sum of N345, 522,729.
The office of the Secretary to State Government (SSG) had N8, 847, 647, 676, office of the Head of Service (HoS) N968, 000, 000 while the House of Assembly had the sum of N13, 074, 500, 000.
There are claims in political circles in the state that the reduction in allocation was Obaseki’s way of opposing Shuaibu’s gubernatorial ambition.