OGUN ELECTION; This is no coincidence

By Tunde Salako

Is this sheer coincidence? In 2019, Gbenga Daniel was the South-West coordinator of the PDP presidential campaign and was always with the then presidential flagbearer of the party, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.

They moved around the country together in private jets. Many times, he talked to the media about the chances of Atiku in the presidential election. But when Atiku lost to President Muhammadu Buhari, Daniel made a 360-degree turn and started negotiating with APC.

He was negotiating with APC because he knew that he could not meet with Ibikunle Amosun who had just floated another party, the APM after his (Amosun’s) crony lost out woefully at the APC gubernatorial primary in Ogun State, coupled with the fact that the then governor had declared him persona non grata for eight years.

He also suspected that the PDP would not be able to perform well at the gubernatorial election just ahead. Ladi Adebutu, who was defeated by Governor Dapo Abiodun in the March 18 election, was also the PDP gubernatorial candidate then.

As a political Maradona, he was able to read the script very well and of course Abiodun won the election, and Daniel got all the benefits attached to joining the winning side. For one thing, the embargo that Amosun had placed on his businesses were removed. Besides, Daniel was even to interface with APC chieftains to the level that he also aspired to become a senator.

Lekan Mustapha, the outgoing senator, is a two-term senator who ordinarily would have become a high ranking senator had he won a third term ticket. But he was prevailed upon with the intervention of some other aspirants and Daniel won the Ogun East senatorial primary.

But having won the primary, Daniel started another scheme. He began thinking of how to outsmart the man that gave him the platform to contest and bounce back into political reckoning. He started badmouthing the Governor all around. During the February 25 presidential and National Assembly elections that APC won by a landslide in Ogun State, the Governor and the APC leadership had supported Daniel with a lot of logistics. That was only natural.

However, shortly after he won the election, the 2019 Judas spirit in him struck and took control of his faculties. Daniel started hobnobbing with the same PDP he had rejected and betrayed then, with Ladi Adebutu and his father now becoming his closet political pals. His project was now to run the sitting Governor down and out of town. And he did his best to undermine the Governor, with his attack dogs in full battle mode. He ensured that during the gubernatorial poll, the Governor lost out in his areas of influence.

It has become quite apparent now that Daniel is a serial betrayer and cannot be trusted. What is important to him is his bread basket and nothing else. There is nobody he cannot betray. If he can betray PDP in 2019 and APC in 2023, what type of character is he portraying in the public space? When you look at the way he was so close to Atiku, it would have been hard to suspect then that he would dump him (Atiku) so spectacularly. But he did.

Then when you look at the way he was also close to Dapo Abiodun and President-elect Bola Tinubu, taking centre stage as the latter came to campaign in Ogun State during the APC presidential primaries and during the presidential campaigns proper, it would also have been difficult to suspect that he would play the Judas card so soon. But that was what he did. He, Abiodun and Tinubu rode in the same bus on the campaigns, yet the bile inside him was huge.

For Daniel, what is permanent is his interest, pure and simple. So, this is not a matter of coincidence; it’s a matter of character. No wonder the Yoruba say that character is a smoke; it can’t be hidden. Governor Abiodun must take comfort in the words of our elders: Whoever is betrayed by friends should take it in his stride. After all, blood relations also betray.

Salako, a social commentator, wrote from Imeko, Ogun State.