The embattled deputy governor of Edo State, Comrade Philip Shaibu, held a Thanksgiving service on Sunday to mark his last Wednesday’s reinstatement by an Abuja Federal High Court, which nullified his April 8, 2024, impeachment by the state House of Assembly.

Speaking after the Thanksgiving service held at Saint Paul’s Catholic Church in Benin City, Shaibu said that his fight against his impeachment was to protect the office of the deputy governor in Nigeria, which he said had been ridiculed by some governors since 1999.

His reinstatement by the court, he noted, was an act of God.

Shaibu, whose arrival in Benin on Thursday was greeted by violence, during which a policeman was killed, asked the Federal Government and the Inspector General of Police to investigate the killing of the policeman when his convoy was attacked on his way out of Benin Airport, where he arrived in a chattered aircraft in company of the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the September 21, 2024 governorship election, Senator Monday Okpebholo.

“The governor said he would destroy me, and that is why I decided that the office of the deputy governor of Edo State. I will fight to make sure that sanity and respect are brought back to that office.

“All these things I am doing are 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 deputies cannot fight, I will fight on their behalf so that governors will start respecting that office,” Shaibu vowed.

On his victory in court, he said, “I challenged God, and I told Him that I want him to prove His power in my life, that people who are anti-God and anti-democracy are at it again, and they want to use me as a scapegoat. I told God to show the world that I am truly your son.

“They said they would impeach me and I would go to court, and that by the time judgment comes, the tenure will have been over. I now challenged God to do it, to prove to them that they have touched His anointed and that the judgment will come faster than expected. I said I would need the judgment 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 by the grace of God, we will succeed,” he added.

Shaibu counselled the youths ahead of the coming election in the state not to allow themselves to be used but to vote in the election to remove “anti-democratic people” rather than allow themselves to be used for violence.

“This election is the time to change anti-democratic forces and you must do it through the ballot Don’t engage in violence. I have been preaching this for the past year, when the intimidation and harassment against me started.”

On the attack that led to the death of a policeman, Shaibu said, “I refused to pull anybody to the streets because they were saying we know him and he will soon pull people to the streets.

“They know what they have done, and they are trying to cover it up, but this one, they cannot cover it up, not when a police officer was a victim. They cannot cover this; all of them must be picked. They orchestrated it; the men of the vigilante did that.

“The vigilante in Edo State killed a policeman, the IG must look into it, they are struggling to see who they can rope people in, but they cannot rope anybody in. I am urging the president and IG to set up an inquiry to investigate this killing, not only the killing but the proscribed vigilante in Edo,” he pleaded. (Nigerian Tribune)

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