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Edo State Governor, Monday Okpebholo, has revealed that there is no opposition in the state and that only about 30 of its roughly 2.8 million registered voters will withhold their votes from President Bola Tinubu in the January 16 presidential election.
He also dismissed Peter Obi, the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) presidential candidate, as a “baby politician”.
In an interview with Symphony Television, Okpebholo repeated his promise to deliver 2.5 million votes to Tinubu.
Pressed on how that could be possible, he said: “Out of 2.8 million registered voters, maybe 30 people will not vote for Mr. President. Maybe we will even get more than 2.5 million votes.”
The figure would equal about 89 per cent of every registered voter in the state. In 2023, Obi, then of the Labour Party, won Edo with 331,163 votes, according to INEC’s results. Tinubu polled 144,471.
The interviewer reminded the governor of this and of the Obidient movement’s following in the state.
Okpebholo said 2023 was held under the previous governor and asked: “Today, who is the Governor of Edo State?”
He said the difference lay in what the state was now seeing, listing a N135 billion dual carriageway between Auchi and Ekpoma, the 83 Division of the Nigerian Army and a transport data centre, all of which he credited to Tinubu. “I can’t really say how I will pay him back,” he said.
He said Tinubu approved the road project after he raised it at their first meeting, before he had even contested the governorship.
Okpebholo said the APC was now stronger and united in Edo. “There is no opposition here,” he said. “ADC is not a party here. It’s on the air, on the informal social media.” He pointed to the recent local government elections, saying no opposition party could say they were not credible.
Told that governments in power usually win such elections, he said Edo’s was free and fair and nobody cried out.
Asked about an ADC event in Edo at which its presidential candidate was said to have been chased out, he said he was not aware of it.
On Obi, he said he did not know whether he had ever visited the state, other than at a church service after the death of an archbishop, where he said the former Anambra governor said amen to his prayer.
“So he’s already acknowledging a stronger politician,” Okpebholo said. “Those are baby politicians. I don’t talk about baby politicians.”
He defended his July 2025 demand that Obi obtain security clearance before visiting Edo. He said there was a crisis when Obi visited a school to donate money, claiming that Obi went with thugs, that he failed to settle them and that a fight followed in which someone died.
“He knows. Ask him,” he said. Asked whether this was verifiable, he said it was, as chief security officer of the state, but offered no evidence in the interview.
He added that he was not accusing Obi. If Obi told him he was coming to campaign, he said, “I will provide him with security.” He said he prayed Obi would not use cultists, “because that would be too bad”.
Asked whether cultists had been eliminated in Edo, he said he could not guarantee that.
Obi visited Benin City on July 7, 2025 and donated ₦15 million to St Philomena Hospital School of Nursing Sciences.
The governor said afterwards that three people were killed when Obi left. Obi responded that his visit was not political, that he was not afraid of visiting any state and that he would return to Edo if need be.
Okpebholo said in the interview that he would give opposition politicians food if they came to his house, because “they will even vote for us”. Edo chapters of the NDC and ADC have accused the APC of intimidation, which the governor’s aides deny.
Within the APC, not everyone shares his confidence. Senate President Godswill Akpabio has said the party is looking to Edo for two million votes.
An APC chieftain, Henry Idahagbon, has warned that the 2.5 million target is a tall dream unless aggrieved party members are reconciled.
Okpebholo also made a case for Tinubu’s record in Edo. He said that in the 2024 governorship election, for which he campaigned from the day he was sworn in, voters had never seen such change.
“What has never happened in Edo has started happening now,” he said. He said a 98 year old woman in Benin City told him 2.5 million votes was possible because of what she had seen.
Whether the claims will be matched at the ballot is the next test. Okpebholo’s confidence rests on the federal projects and on a state that, by his account, has no opposition. Obi’s rests on the 2023 vote and a young following that surged then.
