These are trying times for opposition political parties in Edo State that are ganging up against the reelection of Governor Adams Oshiomhole of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, in the July 14, 2012 governorship election in the state. While the leading opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, backed out of the coalition, a faction of the Labour Party, LP, led by a former PDP member, Elder Sam Omede has dissociated itself from the alliance.  
The alliance called Coalition for Progressive Political Parties, CPPP, was planned between the All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, Peoples Progressive Party, PPP, the Labour Party, LP, as well as the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC. The alliance was formed early in December last year and the gubernatorial aspirant of PPP, Solomon Orobosa Edebiri tipped as likely consensus candidate. But the publicity secretary of Omede’s faction of LP, Austin Odigie said the party’s alliance with the Action Congress of Nigeria that saw the emergence of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole in 2007 still stands. “We are not in a hurry to break up our alliance with ACN for now. The Labour Party in Edo State is not for sale. It is not for the highest bidder. It is not ready to be used as an instrument of destabilisation now or in the future,” Odigie noted. He described LP as a disciplined, focused and reputable political party that has no room for pettiness, showmanship and political prostitution and advised the people of Edo State ,“to be weary of the antics of failed politicians seeking financial rehabilitation and political relevance, who arrogate political offices to themselves without being registered members of such political parties.
The first sign that the coalition was doomed emerged after the state chairman of CPC, Comrade Erhahon, incurred the wrath of his members over the alliance idea. Erhahon argued that adopting a consensus candidate by the coalition should be after each of the parties in the coalition elects its governorship candidate.
He was opposed by some members of the CPC who are opposed to any alliance against the ACN candidate, Oshiomhole. Leading that group is Francis Ikonomwan who is the Edo south senatorial chairman of the party.  Ikonomwan described Erhahon as “a political traitor, and a political crime merchant … who wants to trade with this coalition in future PDP. I never knew early enough that he has a very bad antecedent, for instance, his political antics led the death of  the ANPP in Edo State.” He said there was no division in CPC and said the party is in support of coalition led by Chief Orobosa Solomon Edebiri. Ikonomwan dismissed the idea of CPC working with PDP in the July 2012 governorship election because it “will amount to political assassination, political suicide and an aberration.”  According to him, CPC was formed as an alternative platform to PDP. “CPC is a progressive party and we will work with a progressive party like the ACN to ensure that the change the people desire is not just a change but a positive paradigm shift which the people desire is being sustained in Edo State.” 
The opposition of the factional LP to the four-party coalition has to do with the factionalisation of the party in the state. During the April 2011 general elections, the faction led by Dr. Ebima Ogbeide, who was the coordinator of the Obasanjo presidential campaign in Edo State in 1999 shunned its existing alliance with the ACN which led to its adoption of Oshiomhole as its gubernatorial candidate in 2007. Ogbeide was appointed chairman of a board in the Oshiomhole government before the relationship went sour. On its part, Sam Omede’s faction, which is believed to be enjoying the support of Oshiomhole declared that it has no candidate for the state and National Assembly elections as it had adopted all ACN candidates for the elections. 

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