Thanks to Governor Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State, the line between sheer desperation and outright indiscretion is becoming blurrier by the day. Resigned to fate that he has effectively been played out of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Governor Amosun has been fraternising with otherwise strange bedfellows in his disingenuous desperation to install a successor.
Weeks back, his preferred candidate, Adekunle Akinlade, a Member of the House of Representatives, alongside other loyalists of the beleaguered governor, defected to the All People’s Movement, APM, ostensibly on Amosun’s orders, stating overtly and covertly that it is either Akinlade or nobody for the governorship seat in 2019. He went ahead to publicly declare that he would work for the victory of President Muhammadu Buhari but not for Prince Dapo Abiodun, the APC’s governorship candidate in the state.
With this mindset, Amosun has been reaching out to all and sundry, even those many would ordinarily refer to as his enemies. The Capital can exclusively reveal that Amosun held a meeting with Ladi Adebutu, the factional governorship candidate of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, in Ogun State. While the National Working Committee of the PDP has sent Adebutu’s name to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, as the substantive candidate, controversial Senator Buruji Kashamu has also got a court injunction that authenticates his candidature.
Based on this confusion in the PDP, Amosun met with Adebutu at his opulent country home in Ibara G.R.A, Abeokuta, where he proposed that if the latter eventually got the PDP ticket, his team, led by Akinlade, would work to ensure his victory regardless of their own aspiration. Amosun’s argument is premised on the fact that the Adebutus are very wealthy and popular in their native Iperu where, coincidentally, Abiodun, his foe in the APC, also hails from.
The Adebutus would effectively decimate Abiodun’s chances in that area and fund his candidate for agreed political spoils. Should Adebutu not eventually get the ticket, he would come in handy to get the votes of Iperu and other adjoining areas for the APM to the detriment, again, of Abiodun. Sources at the meeting said Adebutu was pleased with the proposition and they agreed to work together.
But there are posers as to the workability of this hurriedly contracted union; given the character composition of the main actors. Amosun’s propensity for betrayal is legendary. One of the beneficiaries of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s prodigious incursion into southwest politics, Amosun would betray him, the political leader and former governor of Ogun State, Aremo Olusegun Osoba and Abiodun who virtually bankrolled his electioneering expenses among other benefactors in his desperation to control Ogun State politics.
Adebutu, on the other hand, is a silver spoon whose only claim to political fame is his father’s boundless wealth. Though well-read, sources in the state say if, by any stroke of ill-fortune for the people of Ogun State, he became governor, Adebutu would sooner than later do away with Amosun. The next few weeks promise to be filled with more intrigues. (The Capital)
