The All Progressives Congress, Edo State has faulted the claim that the state governor, Mr Godwin Obaseki is at loggerheads with his predecessor and National Chairman of the party, Adams Oshiomhole over control of the state and the state House of Assembly.

The state chairman of the party, Anselm Ojezua, said this on Saturday in Lagos, and blamed the crisis on the deceptive nature of the players in the state’s political space.

He pointed out that the state had been in the news for the wrong reasons because certain individuals who had hijacked the resources of the state in one way or the other resorted to blackmail and misrepresentation of facts to strain the relationship between the governor and his predecessor when the present administration stopped them from diverting revenue meant for the development of the state.

He said the challenge before the party in Edo State was beyond the leadership tussle in the state House of Assembly.

“It is just that a third party is trying to create rift between our national chairman, Adams Oshiomhole and Governor Obaseki.

“But the national chairman of the party has discovered the ulterior motives of the political jobbers going to him in Abuja to spread all sorts of falsehood that the governor had dumped the blueprint drafted to make Edo State attractive for investments in order to rubbish Oshiomhole’s regime; or that the governor is against his people or that the party is bound to lose the next election if the governor is allowed to continue in that direction. Our national chairman now knows better and we are talking; we are back to where we ought to have started.’’

Ojezua said nobody was preventing the remaining 12 members-elect from being inaugurated, assuring the people of the state that “no invasion will take place in the state as Edo is not a colony of the National Assembly but a sovereign part of Nigeria.”

Also speaking, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Media and Communication Strategy, Crusoe Osagie, said the focus of Governor Obaseki was to provide good governance in the state.

He said before the advent of the present administration in the state, Edo State education sector had gone bad, saying the Obaseki-led government deployed enormous resources to ensure the education sector was transformed.