Okowa made me commissioner despite challenging him, Edevbie dismisses rift

Delta State governorship aspirant under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Olorogun David Edevbie, has said the bond of friendship between him and the incumbent Governor Ifeanyi Okowa cannot be broken, with or without politics.

Edevbie, a governorship hopeful disclosed this during a consultation visit to delegates of Ika North East, Okowa’s home council.

Describing Okowa as a good man, he asked the delegates to thank him on his behalf for the love and care he has shown him and urged them to discountenance any rumour of disagreement between them as unfounded and mere politics.

Giving details of their relationship, Edevbie explained that they had always supported each other, regardless of the fact that they contested against each other in the 2014 primaries.

He said: “I was here in 2014 and some of you might remember what I said then. I talked about us as a football team and I said your son is Number 9 and I am Number 10, that if your son scores, we will all support him, and your son scored and I supported him fully from day one. And that is why he appointed me his commissioner for finance for four years. You don’t put someone you don’t trust to be in charge of your money. Your son is sensible, so he picked somebody he trusted to manage the state funds for him. After I did four years on that, he picked me again to be his chief of staff for two years. And I have given him my full support since he became governor in 2015.

“This is an opportunity for me to ask you to thank him on my behalf. He appointed me even though I ran against him in 2014. Throughout the time I worked for him, he didn’t treat me like a subordinate. He treated me like a friend, as a colleague. That is unusual in Nigeria,” Edevbie said.