From Moshood Karim
The political temperature in Edo State rose sharply on Wednesday following a blistering statement issued by the All Progressives Congress (APC), which accused the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) of hypocrisy, desperation and deliberate distortion of facts in their recent criticism of Governor Monday Okpebholo’s administration.
In a strongly worded statement signed by Barr. Peter Uwadiae Igbinigie, the APC’s State Publicity Secretary and made available to Uptown Press Nigeria, the party painted the PDP as a morally bankrupt organisation struggling to stay relevant after years of alleged maladministration. The rebuttal was provoked by comments from PDP’s Acting Publicity Secretary, Chris Osa Nehikhare, who had accused Governor Okpebholo of surrounding himself with questionable characters while pursuing what the PDP described as a selective anti-corruption campaign.
The APC, however, dismissed the PDP’s criticisms as a “cocktail of desperation, projection, and reckless hypocrisy,” suggesting that the opposition party was unsettled by Governor Okpebholo’s firm stance on discipline, accountability, and service delivery.
“If the PDP is alarmed by Governor Okpebholo’s courage to clean up the Augean stables left behind by eight years of reckless impunity under the PDP’s disastrous watch, then they should brace up for more,” the statement read. “This administration is not afraid to suspend officials under investigation because it values public trust above political loyalty.”
The ruling party painted a dire portrait of the PDP’s legacy, accusing it of turning Edo State into “a cesspool of cronyism” where “consultants doubled as commissioners, advisers ran parallel governments, and missing public funds were swept under the carpet.”
Governor Okpebholo’s recent suspension of certain officials over alleged misconduct has drawn both praise and criticism, with the PDP framing the actions as politically motivated rather than evidence-based. The APC insists the suspensions are “strategic moves in a sincere process of purging the system,” and not a witch-hunt.
In a particularly scathing section, the APC dismissed PDP’s moral authority, calling it “rich” for the party to question Governor Okpebholo’s appointees. The party instead redirected public attention to what it called the PDP’s “true theatre of the absurd”—including the controversial sale of public assets under former Governor Godwin Obaseki and the last-minute unveiling of a 30-year development plan described by the APC as “a parting insult to Edo people.”
The APC’s statement concluded with a rallying cry to Edo residents: “Governor Okpebholo is not at war with his tools—he is at war with corruption, ineptitude, and the culture of impunity institutionalised by the PDP. And he is winning.”
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