Just in: Former Council chairmen shock Obaseki, tell him some “bitter truths” ahead of March 11 House of Assembly poll in Edo

Amid apprehensions that his possible imminent loss of the State House of Assembly to the opposition parties may precipitate an impeachment move against him, Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki launched a frenzied meeting with some former local government chairmen as part of effort to canvass for critical votes.

His meeting with some former council chairmen, THE CONCLAVE reports, was intensely hot and bareknuckled. It provided the former council bosses present at the meeting with an opportunity to tell the governor some bitter truths.

The meeting was said to have been initiated by the commissioner for Local Government Affairs, Hon. Monday Osaigbovo.

Sources close to the meeting quoted the governor to have told the former LGA chairmen to do everything within their powers to make sure PDP candidates win the House of Assembly elections slated for 11th March.

In their responses at the meeting, which had in attendance the Secretary to the State Government, Barrister Osarodion Ogie, and other government officials, some of the former council chairmen reportedly told the governor the piece of their minds in a no-hold-barred fashion.

They told him they were not happy with the way he was handling the affairs of the state, including the way he treated members of the PDP who accommodated them when they all left APC.

They said he would have been diplomatic in dealing with the old members of the PDP and the leadership of the party.

The former council chairmen who served under him in the last dispensation also reminded him of how he wanted to rope them into financial crimes after they left office by telling the public that they plundered council funds and would be probed.

They said they recalled how he published what every council owed in some newspapers pointing out that they were able to get out of the mess when they gave full accounts of how the government through the Secretary to the State Government, Ogie, was coming to ask for remittance of funds to the state government, which made the government to stop the attempted probe.

According to a reliable source, who was present at the meeting, “what was supposed to be a meeting of appeasement turned into a combative one.”

The embattled governor was quoted to have said he was always being blamed for everything that had happened in the state and the party.

He informed those present that he was tired of the whole issue and whatever happened in the 11th election should happen, declaring that heavens won’t fall.

The LGA chairmen told him that the party was beyond redemption as begging the people who had already made up their minds to vote against the PDP candidates cannot be reversed.

The governor at that reportedly stormed out of the meeting.

All efforts to bring back the bitter governor proved abortive.