The All Progressives Congress (APC), South-South zone, has invited the former Edo State governor and current national chairman of the party, Adams Oshiomhole, and the Edo governor, Godwin Obaseki, to an emergency caucus meeting scheduled for this Thursday in Abuja.
The deputy governor of Edo, Philip Shuaibu, has also been invited to the meeting.
Seventy-three persons from the South-south, including the minister of transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, the minister of state for petroleum, Timi Silva, and the minister of Niger Delta affair, Godswill Akpabio, have been invited to the meeting, according to a notice placed in a national newspaper by the APC national vice chairman, South-South, Hilliard Eta.
The Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege, the governor-elect of Bayelsa, David Lyon, and his deputy, Biobarakuma Degi, have also been invited to the meeting.
Besides the APC victory in the Bayelsa governorship election, the festering political crisis in Edo State is expected to form part of the agenda of the meeting.
The political fight between Mr Obaseki and Mr Oshiomhole has led to a factional crisis in Edo APC and the state assembly.
A Benin High Court last week restrained a faction of APC loyal to Mr Oshiomhole from removing from office, the APC chairman in the state, Anselm Ojezua.
Mr Ojezua’s faction recently announced the “suspension” of Mr Oshiomhole from APC in the state.
Several people believed to be loyal to Mr Oshiomhole have either been relieved of their positions in the state or suspended from the party to weaken the APC national chairman’s grip on the party politics in the state.
More than 10 of the elected state lawmakers, who are yet to be inaugurated, are currently on self-exile in Abuja reportedly for fear of their safety in Edo.
There is fear that the crisis may affect the fortunes of the party in the governorship election next year.
