In Edo state, various political camps within the PDP has been thrown into an atmosphere of unease and rabble-rousing as Governor Godwin Obaseki picks Asue Ighodalo as his successor.
Asue Ighodalo, a renowned lawyer and Co-founder of Banwo-and-Ighodalo, one of the foremost corporate & commercial law firms in Nigeria, is the immediate elder brother of Pastor Ituah Ighodalo of Trinity House Church.
Asue is currently the non-executive Chairman of Nigerian Breweries Plc whose appointment took effect on May 1, 2023, after he joined the Board of Directors of the brewing giant as a Non-Executive Director on January 1, 2022.
Asue’s appointment as Chairman of NB Plc was made known to the public following the retirement of Kolawole B. Jamodu.
The lawyer is barely settling into his new role before the call to succeed Obaseki as Governor.
Sources disclosed that Governor Obaseki deliberately picked Ighodalo, whose ancestral origin is from Esanland within the Edo Central Senatorial District, to represent the PDP in the upcoming gubernatorial election slated for November 12, 2024.
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The Nation Newspaper reports that Governor Obaseki is in the process of formally presenting Ighodalo to both the state and national leadership of the PDP.
The newspaper notes that leading up to the forthcoming gubernatorial election, the leaders of other political parties such as the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Labour Party (LP) are also devising strategies to nominate their candidates from the Edo Central senatorial district in an attempt to pose a formidable challenge to the PDP. It’s worth mentioning that Governor Obaseki is originally from Benin within the Edo South senatorial district, while his deputy, Shaibu, hails from Jettu in the Etsako West Local Government Area within the Edo North senatorial district.
They are both determined to secure the PDP nomination and succeed in the forthcoming election.
The current move by governor Obaseki had since sent shock waves to his deputy Phillip Shaibu with whom he had been at loggerheads lately. Already, some members of the ruling PDP in the state who are loyal to the deputy governor are unhappy and already spoiling for war.
Earlier, there were indications that the origin of Obaseki’s dispute with his deputy Shaibu stems from the latter’s governorship ambition which the former objects to. Shaibu had earlier in a series of media interviews insisted that his ambition remains his right and cannot connote disloyalty to the governor. The Edo deputy had initiated a battle with his boss after he filed a suit in court stopping his alleged impeachment move which was denied by the governor.
On the other hand, the choice of Asue Ighodalo has been applauded by many in the state who hailed the move as a square peg in a square hole, citing his boardroom sagacity as a rare kind. Asue is a lawyer with more than 35 years of experience and a leading figure in corporate Nigeria.
He sits on the boards of reputable organizations including Sterling Bank Plc and Levene Energy Group, (both of which he chairs) as well as Okomu Oil Palm Plc. He is the immediate past Chairman of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG). No doubt, it appears that more dramas are bound to unfold in Edo as the clock ticks to the November 2024 governorship election in the state
