Exclusive: The Philip Shaibu Interview!

Recently, at the sideline of the Edo Governorship Election Tribunal in Abuja, Midwest Herald Publisher, Comrade Orobosa Omo-Ojo JP, had one-on-one discussion with Rt. Hon. Comrade Philip Shaibu, the immediate past deputy governor of Edo State on his experiences while in office and the fight with his ex boss, former Governor Godwin Obaseki, who orchestrated his impeachment, before the court reinstated him. The Extract…

Thank you very much again. We will briefly just speak for about 5 minutes. Tell us, did challenges sharpened your political journey?

Yeah, first I want to thank God seriously and also my wife Maryann. People may not understand why each time I talk about my political journey and struggle I must involve her, because ours isn’t just the conventional politics. It all started when we were in school together.

I was Vice President of the Student Union Government of my institution, she was also an executive of the Students Union Government in her school, we were all in trenches together.

So we understand what it takes to keep democracy alive so that we don’t lose it, because we know the level of sacrifices we paid to finally have this democracy.

So when anybody wants to bring his ugly head to derail democracy, there’s this adrenaline in us that just spark and drive us to fight.

That’s why we are always agitated when we see people trying to derail democracy.

So for me, the entrenchment of political institution has been a charter that I vowed to defend.

The question is, how will our institutions be allowed to function by emergency political leaders. Because we all believe that when we build institutions, these institutions will be able to protect us—the rich; take care of the middle class; take care of the poor and the poorest of the poor.

But when we refuse to allow institutions to work, very few individuals that have used our collective heritage to become rich and powerful will be the ones that will wrongly see themselves benefiting from our collective struggles.

It’s unfortunate for them not to know that, when 80 to 90% of the people are poor in the society, the remaining 10% that think they are rich, are not. They are as poor as the 90%. They won’t have peace.

They won’t have peace because insecurity will be the order of the day and the rest, unemployment and poverty and crisis. So for us, we have been in the struggle to build institutions.

So, when my struggle started, one thing I stood for was that, we must do things right. You must be on the side of the law at all times. Because a lawless society obviously, is a disaster for democracy.

Fortunately for me, I never got involved in any negative thing in government. I was never involved in any transaction in government that was against the oaths I took,

I was not involved in anything that has to do with monetary things, to the extent that I will be found wanting if the books are to be looked into.

So, I was careful right from day one in the assembly to executive branch, I’ve never been found wanting to have misappropriated funds.

And when I discovered that His Excellency Godwin Obaseki was a transactional person, showing the transactional experience and attitude in the stock market, which he brought to governance, I noticed that, he wasn’t ready to help Edo people, but to enrich himself.

He wanted to be another Dangote—forgetting that Dangote did not become Dangote from taking government money.

He became very rich through buying and selling and through production. But Obaseki was different because he came from Lagos, he has been close to Dangote and wanted to compete with Dangote to be the richest man in Nigeria, forgetting that Edo money was for Edo people. So I saw it coming.

And I was left with no other option than to just face my work and see how best I can keep the books clean and fix areas where I was asked to.

And that was sports and revenue generation and and fight against Covid-19, as well as immunization program, which we managed very well.

We created a system whereby federal government had to adopt Edo system – ‘Immunization Under One Roof’ which was started by me before the federal government adopted the program as a national policy.

When I am given any assignment, whether I know it or not, I quickly learn on it. So when I was asked to supervise the immunization program, I took three weeks out of my schedule every evening to learn what the assignment entailed.

I was also saddled with the responsibility to fight Lassa Fever when it became a major crisis in our state. We have to fight to bring the mortality rate to single digits.

It took us two years and a half to be able to fight and get the mortality rate reduced from triple digit to single digit.

And I created a new way of dealing with it in pre dry season, which is always a peak period and we developed a plan to deal with it, which some other states came to understudy.

We were number 34 out of 36 states, when I took over immunization program in Edo, in three years, we came first with Anambra and we maintained first, second, third for the period I handled the state immunization program.

So for me, challenges sharpened and ignited my quest to make institutions strong because that is what you and I believe in, and that is why we are fighting on.

That is why we are in politics. Because for me, we must not build strong supermen. We must build strong institutions because you and I, no matter what, no matter how strong we are, we are going to be old one day.

And when we are old, the institutions we created will support us. So, it’s not how much we are able to steal today, that matters, it is how you are able to survive tomorrow, because no matter the money you steal, I’ve discovered, it doesn’t even work.

Look at most of these so-called governors and chairmen and everything, they stole this, stole that, some of them live in abject poverty.

Yes they’re in poverty now. They beg to survive. But when these institutions are strong, you will survive.

Yeah. So for me, what ignited my quest to be the Comrade that I am, is our attitude, our charter, our quest to make institutions work.

Well done, my Comrade brother. There’s something I have been wanting to ask you and now that ‘am here, let me use the opportunity. How did you manage to revive the sports sector in Edo State? Because since you left, the state has dropped from sport rankings.

The Covid-19 and the revival of sports and Insurance Football Clucb in particular, marked the highlights of my stewardship as Deputy Governor to Godwin Obaseki.

Yeah, I’m a sportsman. I play 15 sports.
I’m very good in 15 sports and I was very active in school from primary school to secondary school to university level and after university. Up till the year 2021, I was still actively playing for Bendel Insurance. So I am very good in sport.

I had an ankle injury when I was playing for Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Abuja, and what caused the ankle injury was because of the grass which wasn’t rolled.

There are usually small holes which are hidden in the turf. If you don’t maintain the turf it creates problem for the players.

You need to be a player to understand that. So I understood the challenges of players. I know that when officials fail to pay players, how it affects their performances.

These experiences came handy when I was asked to manage sportsmen and women in the state.

I made up my mind that no player playing in Edo facilities will sustain injury, so I set up various committees to ensure these challenges were resolved.

I set up a committee to ensure that Bendel Insurance players were paid salaries and allowances as when due.

The players were owed 24 months—₦40,000 salaries before our administration came in and the approved salary by the Nigerian League Board was ₦150,000 then.

What we did was to increase their salary and this enabled us to attract quality players. We then went ahead to sign contracts with ’14 Africa’ for their jerseys.

I discovered that they were recycling jerseys, but that wasn’t good enough because my desire was to rebrand Bendel Insurance and so I set up a committee headed by Mrs. Sabina for rebranding of the club to attract private sector sponsorship.

Football needs ready funding at all times but government bureaucracy don’t allow that, so we needed to attract sponsorship.

As an accountant, I set up an accounting process under my supervision and in line with the existing financial regulatory provisions and this fast tracked the activities of the club.

This process of private sector sponsorship was replicated in all sports.

Another thing I did was to look at all the sports associations. I discovered that most of the chairmen where holding their offices because they didn’t have anything else to do.

They weren’t enthusiastic and just wanted to earn a living. So I went looking for chairmen that had passion to develop the sport—bank executives, Tony from LNG, he loves tennis, Pastor Osazuwa, he loves table tennis, I got him to head table tennis association.

All of them brought their money and this helped to reduce government funding.

That was how I reorganized the sports association and I brought Andrew Momodu also to head golf, at the end of the day, sport came alive.

After the restructuring, we went to the governor to demand for the improvement of sporting facilities in the state and this led to the rebuilding of Samuel Ogbemudia stadium and other mini stadia in Oredo and Ikpoba Okha.

Our plan was to build one stadium in each of the local government areas, but the governor abandoned the plan when our quarrel started.

That’s how we were able to revive sports. We came 3rd in the National Sports Festival held in Abuja, 2nd when we hosted and came 3rd again in Asaba. So, from the previous position of 17, we were maintaining 2nd and 3rd positions.

Again, I insisted when Edo hosted, that every medal that will be won by athletes, must be Clean from drug.

My objective was to bring back ethical values into sports and along this line, I created the doping office to subject athletes to test before participating in the game.

At the national level, we rebranded national sports festival with real-time medal table like the what obtains in the Olympics.

The final medal table was approved the very day National Sports Festival ended in Edo, unlike previous practice where final tables were announced months after the games.

For the very first time, we returned Five Hundred and Forty Million Naira surplus to the state coffers after we published the income and expenditure account.

In addition to the administrative work I did to revamp sports, I played in the Edo 2020 football team that won gold, and I scored two goals in different matches during the sports festival.

I have my gold medals and ‘am the first deputy governor to play for a club in the Nigerian Professional League and Nigerian National League for three seasons.

So you were a sitting deputy governor, when you played in the leagues?

Yes! I traveled with them in the same bus to Lagos. I traveled with them to play Warri Wolves. I traveled with them to Owerri to play Heartland. I traveled with them also to play Plateau United, and I traveled with them to play Remo Stars, all in the same bus as deputy governor, these are apart from the home matches I also played.

You were no doubt an effective legislator. You served two-terms of Eight years in Edo State House of Assembly and about half term at the National Assembly as member of Federal House of Representatives. On a flip side, which of these roles gave you opportunity to express yourself and achieve most?

I think with the legislative role I was able to express myself to the fullest. In the executive arm, I wasn’t able to express myself because I had a boss and not everything I had wanted to do was given approval and because of that, it limited my space.

But as a legislator, my space was unlimited because I was representing a constituency.

As member of Edo State House of Assembly, beyond the motions and bills, I had 49 constituency projects which are still standing as we speak.

I am talking about, schools, healthcare centres, markets, electrification—connecting rural areas that never had electricity and as a member of House of Representatives in the 18 months, I was able to execute 16 projects, these are beyond the motions and bills that I sponsored.

Don’t forget the National Electricy Regulation Commission, it was my motion that led to the establishment and my motion also led NERC to eradicate estimated billing in the country and I also moved the motion on speed limit enforcement by the Road Safety.

In a nutshell, I had freedom to serve my constituency as a legislator.

You know these governors see government as theirs and not as a collective.

Obaseki didn’t see it as our government, he spent all his time trying to subdue me to what he wanted and that limited the scope of what I could have done.

I ended up losing friends and using my overheads to reach out to communities, built my traditional ruler’s palace, built churches, I built reverend fathers quarters and others.

My final question. You’re a very religious person. I have been to your home several times and have to wait because you were worshiping in your family alter. Is there anything that pulled you to God along the way why growing up?

Actually I was born into a humble Christian home, my father and mother were Catholics, I went through Catholic doctrine and I grew up to become a Mass Server in the legion of Mary, got enroled in Catholic Youth Movement as it was called then.

So I was groomed to be dedicated to prayers and to God by my parents. I don’t do anything without first seeking the face of God.

When Obaseki started the fight, God told me that, if he doesn’t leave me alone, he will in the nearest future be looking for me to beg me. God said, my son stand strong, you will smile home and if he doesn’t allow you, he will suffer and turn back to beg you. God also told me to forgive Obaseki when he comes begging.

Because God told me I will smile, I wasn’t ruffled and people were surprised. But how will I be ruffled when God told me I will win.

I made effort, I was determined, I have a strong will, and I knew Obaseki was a bully but I told myself that I was going to bring him down and I left him in the hands of God.

We have seen all manners of persons like Obaseki during the democratic struggles, that’s why when we see people like him, we want to fight and get them out of the system, because if we have people like that in democracy, military is just close-by, such people will derail democracy and we don’t need them in the system.

So my fight with Obaseki wasn’t about what he did to me, but it was about what he was planning to do to the state.

The institution of the deputy governor is above Philip Shaibu and the institution of governor is above Obaseki, that’s why I fought, because the office of the deputy governor must be preserved, must be respected and 10 Obaseki can’t reduce the office of the deputy governor.

With God on our side, we have defeated Obaseki, and he isn’t only out, but he is down and he has become a fugitive in another man’s land. Ofonee!

Congratulations and thank you for your time, Your Excellency.

Read Also: Impeachment: Shaibu Floors Obaseki, Court Restrains Governor, Assembly Others