Why budget for Shaibu’s office was sliced to N354m–Speaker

The Speaker of the Edo State House of Assembly, Blessing Agbebaku, has explained that the office of the Deputy Governor, Philip Shaibu, got only N354m allocation in the 2024 budget because he, Shaibu, will be preoccupied with his governorship ambition next year and won’t be able to do much official work.

According to the Speaker, the deputy governor should not expect to get much money since he would not be doing much official work.

In the budget, signed into law by Governor Godwin Obaseki on December 15, the governor’s office got an allocation of N19bn, the Secretary to the State Government got N8bn, the House of Assembly got N13bn while the Head of Service got N968m.

It would also be recalled that Shaibu’s governorship ambition had pitched him against Governor Obaseki, who is believed to want someone else as his successor.

Shaibu had also said recently that his office had received no allocation in the last six months.

However, Agbebaku, while speaking to journalists on Thursday in his office in Benin, said it was untrue that the 2024 allocation to Shaibu’s office, viewed as small, had caused a division among lawmakers.

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Agbebaku said: “Allocation has been done in a way to reflect the office. However, on this occasion, the governor stated clearly that since the deputy governor has not performed his functions in the outgoing year because of his aspiration, which he recognised to be a huge one and time-consuming, most of his functions were relocated to other offices as the governor has the powers to do so.

“All of us know, the deputy governor doesn’t have constitutional functions except those allocated to him by the governor. So most of those things that the deputy governor used to do, the governor has taken away from him. The deputy governor has even gone to the media to complain that he is no longer working. So, if you are not working, why allocate money to the office?

“The money is not allotted to you as a personal gift; it is given for work; so if you are not working, naturally the money will not come; and there is no way you can be working effectively when you have an ambition of becoming the governor.

“We are talking about a year where for the most part, almost 11 months will be on electioneering, so how are you now going to function properly as a deputy governor? In his magnanimity, the governor has said, “I don’t want to be a stumbling block to your ambition of becoming the governor of the state.”