OGD’s long walk in APC: An eyewitness account

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The 2023 general elections have come and gone, yet the outcome uncovered many puzzles and threw up fresh questions in Ogun State. Since the completion of the governorship elections, accusations and counter-accusations have flared.

Escaping defeat by the whiskers, albeit still under serious contestation, operatives in Governor Dapo Abiodun camp are quick to ascribe their abysmal showing in Ogun East, the governor’s political base, to the actions (or inactions) of former governor and senator-elect, Otunba Gbenga Daniel.

These revisionists are either mischievous, ill-informed or just looking for a “fall guy” to hang their failings on. This should not be allowed to happen.

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Journey to APC

Otunba Gbenga Daniel ran Ogun State for all of eight years (2003-2011) on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). In that time, he blazed the trail of governance with uncommon panache and novelty.

It is common knowledge that his policy on human capital development, employment and workers’ welfare, elevation of traditional institutions, as well as his insistence on homegrown solutions to infrastructure development, attracted great goodwill to him.

Till date, it is safe to say whatever the PDP has to showcase in Ogun cannot be detached from the achievements of the OGD administration. But bitter succession politics happened and the formidable PDP winning machine under OGD was whittled down. Instructively, the dramatis personae on all sides lost.

Then-opposition party-ACN (which later transmuted to APC) took over power.

After the 2015 failed experiments with the Labour Party and botched unification with Kashamu’s PDP, the OGD political family returned to the drawing board, keeping faith with the party whose handlers at the time continued to be hostile to call for reforms.

Fast forward to 2019. Having run a successful national campaign that helped Atiku Abubakar clinch his first-ever presidential ticket of a major political party (PDP), OGD was faced with unresolved bickering for structure in his home state. It was a tough fight between Buruji Kashamu and Ladi Adebutu for Ogun PDP structure. All efforts to achieve a political solution proved abortive.

While the PDP national leadership recognized Adebutu as the party’s candidate for the 2019 guber, Kashamu got the court and consequently INEC to recognize him as the party’s flag bearer.

The OGD political family, as a major stakeholder in the party, was then faced with a quandary: to gamble with the political destiny of Ogun people with an unsure, unwholesome candidacy or move beyond partisan considerations to recommend the best option available to Ogun people.

ALSO READ: OGD: When the lion roars into the ruling party

On parade were the APM, backed by the then-incumbent who had haunted and harassed OGD and his supporters relentlessly for eight years. There was ADC which was considered a nonstarter having performed woefully in the preceding national assembly election. And then there was APC whose flag was being flown by Dapo Abiodun, a longstanding friend of OGD and supported by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.

It was in the midst of this controversy that Dapo Abiodun ran to OGD for support as it was obvious that Amosun was going for the jugular.

Risking his place and name as a chieftain of the PDP, OGD ditched partisan sentiments and towed an altruistic path to publicly endorse Dapo Abiodun of the APC!

This bold move fetched OGD great criticisms and attacks from his PDP friends and faithfuls who felt he betrayed their party. Of course, this was because they did not understand the peculiarities of the Ogun political situation at that time. Thankfully, many have come to respect his wisdom now.

Having worked for another party in the 2019 election, OGD honourably withdrew from the PDP and then from partisan politics in a widely publicised letter. He then concentrated his energy on humanitarian and human capacity development endeavours via the Gateway Front Foundation and the Political Leadership Institute (POLA).

But as they say, a goldfish has no hiding place. By the middle of the year 2020, pressure had begun to mount on OGD from followers and associates who felt orphaned and disoriented by his withdrawal from active politics. The Mai Mala-Buni-led leadership of the party had also identified OGD as a ‘must-have’ in its drive for top political players around the country.

To cut the chase, the APC national leadership comprising many governors, on one fine day in February 2021, stormed OGD’s Sagamu residence to hand him The Broom and bring him into the party.

Note that OGD’s entrance into APC was really not the initiative or wish of the Ogun governor. This is instructive because it could signal the origin of the hostility OGD and his adherents started to experience upon their entry into the APC.

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