Vice Chairman, South-South of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dan Orbih, has formed a Legacy Coalition to front for governorship candidate in Edo State in 2024.
The coalition is made up of old members of the party called the Legacy Group, led by Orbih and some founding members of the party who had left earlier and those who came to the party with Governor Godwin Obaseki from the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Prominent among the new group was a member of the Board of Trustees (Bot) of the PDP, Charles Idahosa, former state woman leader of APC, Esosa Amadasun, former Speaker of the House of Assembly, Frank Okiye, former commissioner in Adams Oshiomhole administration, Orobosa Omo-Ojo, nine former local government area chairmen among others.
Among the legacy group were Owere Dickson Imasogie, former senatorial candidate of the PDP for Edo North, Pascal Ugbmohe, two former members of the House of Representatives, Ogbeide-Ihama and Sergius Ogun, the state Secretary of the party, Hilary Otsu and the state Woman Leader of the party.
Orbih said with the victory of the PDP in Bayelsa State, it was possible for the opposition to win election under the President Bola Tinubu administration with proper planning even as he lamented that Obaseki’s coming into the party divided it.
“We have realized that we have challenges in our state, we have also realized that we have our destiny in our hands. The governor that will emerge through your support will be a governor that will not ask you to introduce yourself before he will recognize you, we are going to have a governor that has been part of us and will remain part of us, a governor that will realize the challenges we are facing as a state.
Orbih also stated the reason he had stopped visiting Benin as he uses to.
“One of the reasons I am no longer as frequent as I used to be in Benin is that each time I look at what we are facing today, I bleed in my heart. Here was a PDP that was united in love before the election of Governor Obaseki, he joined us and divided the party but today, but today with the faces of those present here, I am convinced more than ever before that the way forward for PDP to retain power is to elect one among this group who will be the next governor of Edo State.”
Charles Idahosa said the party must communicate adequately with the national leadership so that they would get fair hearing even as he criticized the crisis between the governor and deputy and faulted the leaders for not speaking out against the actions of the governor which, he said, has made the deputy governorship position ‘very unattractive’.