By Tunde Oladunjoye
Gbenga Daniel, the highly controversial former Governor of Ogun State, is in the news again; having set his attack dogs at me.
Few people have asked what it is this time around. But I have answered that it is still the same intolerant and arrogant politician whose penchant for opportunism knows no bound.
My response to his self-serving interviews granted to some media establishments last week during which he directly and indirectly attacked Aremo Segun Osoba and Prince Dapo Abiodun (interviews he now almost denies or wishes he never granted), expectedly elicited a flurry of abuses, insults and lies against my person from the children of anger on his pay roll. Of course, I shrugged them off.
However, I was not the only one who witnessed what I said about the former Governor and I challenge anyone to contradict me.
I maintain that Daniel sucked-in by power, fought almost everyone in sight. From Chief Olusegun Obasanjo to Senator Iyabo Obasanjo, Senator Martins Kuye, Senator Lekan Mustapha, Chief Sule Onabiyi, Rt. Hon. Dimeji Bankole, his father, Chief Alani Bankole, Hon. Tele Ogunjobi, to Hon. Tunde Oladunjoye. He did not spare the Alake of Egbaland, who he had planned to depose and banish to Ogun Waterside Local Government Area for merely complaining about poor roads.
That was what I said and I still challenge anyone to come out and point out a lie.
If an adult strikes his toe against a pebble, it is expected that he will look back to see where he took a wrong step. An adult is not expected to start making excuses instead of making peace with his past.
One of the staff of Daniel’s Compass Newspaper had to hurry outside the country into exile after he escaped from a mysterious vehicular accident few days after he openly criticised Daniel at a press conference. Fourteen years after, the man, Baaroyin has remained in Canada. Same ex-governor was reported to have slapped his Commissioner for Information ( who now owns a popular radio station in Abeokuta), who retaliated with double slaps. Now, the same man has turned, in utter ingratitude, to cast aspersions in the mass media saying he got “bad press”. Journalists do not create bad situations, they only report them. In fact, bad news is good news for the press.
The man known for unbridled opportunism played a duplicity game with ASIWAJU’S aspiration and campaign for presidency. His opportunism is renowned. He came into Ogun politics with it. Flying the card of Afenifere membership, the leaders of Afenifere developed soft spot for him only to regret their support when they realised he only flew the Afenifere kite.
After opting out of his misadventure for PDP national chairman contest, after raising a lot of money from friends and associates, and as embarrassing defeat stared him in the face, Mr. Daniel later re-emerged as the Campaign Coordinator for Atiku Abubakar Campaign for Presidency, at which he did a very poor job.
ODG put one leg in PDP and one leg in APC in the build-up to the election of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. His heart was in the PDP and part of his body was in APC. Of course, after he got elected, he worked against Governor Dapo Abiodun and the party that gave him the senatorial ticket; and evidence abound.
This was the same Daniel who requested a close friend of his to help him thank Prince Dapo Abiodun for giving him 75 million naira in support of his senatorial ambition. That was not the only money he got from the governor. At a meeting with candidates of APC at the Campaign Council in Abeokuta, in the build-up to the general elections, while giving his reports from the field, he kept lacing it with “I will bring my bill to the governor”. In fact, if not that Daniel himself announced the N75 million gift from the Governor to a friend and a traditional ruler, no one would have known. That is one thing about Governor Dapo Abiodun, if he does a favour to anyone with his right hand, his left hand will never know.
That OGD got one revisionist Wale Ismail to write a disjointed article that I “indicted” Aremo Osoba and Prince Dapo Abiodun, showed that, for sure, Mr. Daniel never knew how Asiwaju Tinubu won the party ticket or he failed to tell his jobless lickspittles the truth.
A week to the presidential primary, Aremo Osoba, relocated fully to Abuja where daily meetings were held in the residence of former governor of Osun State, Baba Akande, trying to find a consensus presidential candidate for the South West. The search for consensus candidate actually started from Lagos House Marina, and former governor Osoba and Prince Dapo Abiodun were actively part of it.
After receiving huge sumsrunning into, hundreds of millions from Asiwaju on the pretext of mobilizing delegates from Ogun State for Asiwaju, Daniel started calling people, including myself, to come to his place in Abuja on the eve of the APC presidential primary election . But he was shunned as people who wanted Asiwaju for President went to a popular senator from Ogun State. Till date, it is unclear if Daniel returned the huge millions of naira to Asiwaju. Unknown to OGD, Governor Abiodun was one of those who worked on the former Vice President to buy into the consensus arrangement, without success. .
While it was well known that some prominent aides of Prince Dapo Abiodun openly worked for Asiwaju, there was no case of open or private rebuke from the Governor. Had it been that Daniel was Governor Abiodun, people can rightly imagine what would have happened to those aides. Not only would they have been sacked, they would not have been able to
sleep in their homes in town.
Daniel can claim that he was the only one that worked for Asiwaju, but he knows in his heart that he played a double game. There was no better evidence than the recent revelation by the Chairman of the PDP in Ogun state, Hon. Sikirulai Ogundele.
“The party chairman recalled that, for instance, despite appeals by the party’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, and former President Olusegun Obasanjo that former governor Gbenga Daniel be allowed to contest the Senatorial seat on the party’s ticket, Mr Adebutu remained adamant and turned down their appeals.”
Atiku was reported to have come to Ogun State twice to plead with Adebutu to give the senatorial seat to Daniel, his former staff, but Adebutu declined.
Ogundele lamented further: “If Adebutu had conceded (the ticket to Daniel), PDP would be in that seat by now. For these reasons, I concluded that Adebutu does not love the party, and he does not want us to win the election.”
How can you be working for Asiwaju Tinubu and Alhaji Abubakar Atiku will be pleading with Hon. Ladi Adebutu to give you PDP’s Ogun East Senatorial Ticket in a general elections that Atiku was also contesting for the presidency. This says a lot about the double-dealing and intolerant political wheeler-dealer.
More than a month after the publication of Ogundele’s revelations in major national newspapers and on social media, Senator Gbenga Daniel has now uttered a word. He has simply entered the mute mode.
I wish to restate, for the avoidance of doubt, that I defy anyone to counter any of what I have written.
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