Gbenga Daniel: “How I Made Amosun A Senator 11 Years Ago” Oct 7, 2014 Posted By In Interview, News, Politics OGD Opens Up On Their Age-Long Rift •Reveals How BODE GEORGE Introduced AMOSUN To Him For the past 11 years Ogun Governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun has been locked in a bitter war with his predecessor, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, so much so that a few weeks back Amosun wondered why Daniel was still walking the streets a free man. So bitter is their war that Amosun has destroyed (and in some cases had attempted to destroy) all that OGD did in his 8 year tenure as Governor. Yet a few years back both Ogun Gov. Ibikunle Amosun and his predecessor, Otunba Gbenga Daniel were the best friends and political associates. It was not a hidden fact that both of them started out as political associates, but towards the end of Daniel’s 1st term in office both became sworn enemies and Amosun began to fight him uptill now. What went wrong City People asked OGD a few weeks back and he recalled how they 1st met and became political associates. Its interesting. Read on. Over the years, there has been a lot of controversy about your relationship with Gov. Amosun. Both of you started out as friends, what went wrong? Who brought who into politics? Who brought who into PDP or AD and all that? Nobody can say all that publicly became there is no controversy anywhere or about anything. The facts are there. Maybe he would whisper such lies to his cronies. How can Ibikunle bring me into politics? How? By what stretch of imagination? Even as a young man in this town, in Lagos, here I was the main supporter of Prof. Agbalajobi when he become the Governor of Lagos State, I was still a young man. Yes, I wasn’t playing active politics. But I have always been like this. In my earlier years as a secondary school student I had always been active. I met Pastor Bakare on the debating field. I represented Baptist Boys High School Abeokuta, he represented Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta. Thats how we started. We came to the University of Lagos together. We started Dinners Club together. Dinners Club is virtually Unity Party of Nigeria, students wing at Unilag. The 1st outing of Chief Obafemi Awolowo when he established the UPN in 1978 was when we hosted him at the education auditorium at the University of Lagos. I was the President of that Club, with the same Pastor Tunde Bakare. Where has Gov. Amosun been? Where did he start from? As a young man that is where I came from. By the time I started working I had become interested in what was happening around me so much so that I was the main supporter of Prof. Agbalajobi, during that big and epic battle where because of the clash between him and Dapo Sarumi, Otedola then became the Governor of Lagos State. Where was he? Where was Amosun when we were doing the Bola Tinubu election from this same location, from this my office where you are in now. It was from here we made Bola Tinubu Governor of Lagos State. Where was Amosun then. Please, please lets change the topic. At what point did you become close to him? I ran into Amosun by happenstance when Chief Bode George invited me to a dinner. This was in 2001 at the Golden Gate Restaurant in Ikoyi. That was when he just came and introduced himself to me and from there he started coming to my house and to my office here. And when I then decided to go to the PDP it was Chief Bode George and Chief Sule Onabiyi (they are the main people) who invited me. He then started coming to my office asking for one favour or the other. The one we could, we did. And when I decided to go into the fray, he also then said he wanted to go into the Senate. So, he then became a member of my OGD campaign group. Were you in the same party? I joined the PDP. He was already in PDP. And when I decided to run for Governor, he Amosun ran for the Senate and he became part of my campaign organisation. While I was Governor and all these lies were being peddled Obasanjo called a meeting at his Otta farm. Obasanjo was shocked. In fact Obasanjo called him a liar when he now heard that there was absolutely nothing like all the rumour they were peddling. I have never taken a dime from him. Never. Quite on the contrary, I ran a state wide campaign looking after all of them, including Amosun, and all the Senatorial, House of Reps, House of Assembly candidates and I funded the party almost single handedly for us to win the election in 2003. That is how he went into the Senate. So you can see that I made him what he is today. I made him politically. So, what led to the parting of ways? Because I never thought that he wanted to be Governor but he didn’t know it was possible. So, all of a sudden he just found himself in the Senate with little or no efforts because he rode on my back to be a Senator. So, having been Senator, he just felt why can’t I be Governor and he launched an attack on me and he started working against my administration, from the day I was sworn in till now. He started from the week, I was sworn in till this present moment he has not stopped. I repeat from the 1st week I was sworn in, in 2003 till this present moment he has not stopped one day. All I did while I was Governor was to be matured to believe that is this process someone like Amosun will exist. People now blame me that why didn’t you prosecute him. If I had then, you media people will accuse me of nor being tolerant.They would have said its politics you have to tolerate everybody. That is what I was told. So, he now found himself as Governor and we thought now that he is Governor he will let go. He wanted to be Governor and had gave it to him and since we are not God. We now thought he will do be the Governor of all, he now feels he will not rest until he destroys OGD. That is the whole story of my EFCC trial. Every now and then, civil servants are been forced to go and give all sorts of testimony and the ones that don’t go will be fired I have an instance of a top civil servant who has been compulsorily retired because he refused to tell lies against me. If you ask for the man he is in Abeokuta. People have been compulsorily retired from the civil service because they went to court and openly declared in court that they can not tell lies against this man, OGD. His name is Alhaji Busurat, one of the most senior and finest land officers in Ogun State. He has been compulsorily retired. He was retired before his time. He swore with a Holy Quran, in an open court, that he can’t tell lies against this man. Two weeks later he was compulsorily retired.
Posted on: Wed, 08 Oct 2014 06:59:50 +0000
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