Gbenga Daniel and hallucination of serial failure, by Tunde Oladunjoye

“It is fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure”.

The above postulation was an indelible thoughts of one of the most celebrated wealthiest personalities in the world, Bill Gates, in his evaluation of success in leadership and business.

This submission clearly defines the ongoing conversation in the political space of Ogun State, which was ignited by the recent interview granted by the former Governor, Otunba  Gbenga Daniel.

Daniel, the incumbent Senator representing Ogun East Senatorial District had said some of the legacy projects being credited to Prince Dapo Abiodun were his initiatives which were under reported due to ‘bad press’.

He specifically mentioned the iconic Gateway Agro-Cargo International Airport,  the project that had elicited applause for the administration of Governor Dapo Abiodun from all over the world, commending his tenacity,  clear vision, creativity and sincerity of purpose.

Unlike the deceptive 8-year administration of Daniel, that was characterized with high level of fraud, political assassination and widespread brigandage,  Abiodun came on board with integrity, and purposeful leadership skill, which is practically responsible for the remarkable success his administration had recorded in the last five years, and the reason for the present headache of his hitherto traducers, including Gbenga Daniel.

Setting the record straight,  like many other failed Governors of Daniel type, who merely made political statements about project to manipulate people’s emotions and deceive them for political gains, the Agro-Cargo Airport situated at Ilisan-Iperu axis of the State was just one of the many areas where Otunba Gbenga Daniel failed the people of Ogun State very woefully.

Gbenga Daniel,  after announcing construction of an Airport in the year 2006, the area earmarked for the project remained a tick forest till 2019 when Prince Dapo Abiodun came into the saddle,  Daniel’s successor, Ibikunle Amosun based on the nature of his personality and pattern of reasoning did not even open the file of the proposed Airport throughout his eight years in office, the same way Daniel abandoned all the projects left behind by his predecessor, Aremo Olusegun Osoba.

One would have thought the controversial former governor due to the benevolence of God, unique support of former governor and national Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Aremo Segun Osoba, and of course with the magnanimity and financial support of the current Governor of Ogun State, Prince Dapo Abiodun,  would have learnt to be humble.

Obviously, Daniel’s recent subterfuge and infantile direct and indirect attacks on Baba Segun Osoba and Prince Dapo Abiodun is not only characteristic of his well known ingratitude, but also of a man preoccupied with his battle against undefeated and unchangeable verdict  of history over his tempestuous and intolerant eight inglorious years of misrule as governor of  Ogun State.

Daniel in his recent interview published by a popular national daily attempted to denigrate Aremo Osoba as being responsible for the “bad press” he lamented to have received during his controversial years! This is the same Baba Osoba who was running around and pleading that Daniel should be given the APC senatorial ticket and should not be disgraced as a former governor; as it was evident that Daniel could not have won the APC senatorial primary.

If one may ask, was it Baba Osoba that caused Daniel the self-invented egoistic battles? Daniel fought Senator Iyabo Obasanjo and fought the father. Daniel fought Rt. Hon. Dimeji Bankole and fought Dimeji’s father, Chief Alani Bankole. He fought the late Senator Jubril Martins Kuye and also fought his political son, Senator Lekan Mustapha. The permanent nose-twitching politician  fought late Pa Sule Onabiyi, he already prepared a place in Ogun Waterside to banish the then Alake of  Egbaland to, as he planned to depose the Alake for  merely complaining about bad roads in Abeokuta.

Gbenga Daniel battled Prof. Wole Soyinka and had a town hall meeting organised by the globally renowned scholar disrupted. The man Daniel went on to lock-up the Ogun State House of Assembly  for close to two years and refused to budge despite the interventions of the House of  Representatives and other eminent personalities. Were all these caused by Baba Osoba or the press that Daniel in his revisionist manner described as “bad press”.

He, practically boxed the air. He dissolved elected local government administration of Hon. Tele Ogunjobi in Ijebu North Local Government and that of Hon. Tunde Oladunjoye in Ijebu East Local Government,  despite a subsisting order of the court restraining such illegal dissolution. He ridiculed the political standing of Asiwaju Bola Armed Tinubu and labelled himself Lion of the West, until he was caged by Lion-Killer Senator Buruji Kashamu.

_Serikin goma, samani goma,_ was the Hausa’s proverb meaning ten kings with their ten different  terms/tenure. The controversial ex-governor still wants the governors after him to kowtow to him. He behaves as if he has not left office and could not detach his ego from the office he once  occupied, especially since he woefully lost the infamous bid to impose a successor.

The recent interview of having the grand or master plan for what Governor Dapo Abiodun has been accomplishing is not only self-ridiculing, it is also a shameful acceptance of failure on the part of Mr. Gbenga Daniel. His interview and comment on Governor Dapo Abiodun reek of deep envy and insensitive lack of modesty.

The intolerant man should be told that a plan, no matter how grand, superb or masterly, remains nothing but a mere plan that can take no one nowhere.

The Ogun Agro Cargo Airport envisaged by the Daniel Administration was not more than a PowerPoint proposal that never left the computer system. A whopping sum of four billion naira was paid for “feasibiiity study on the Agro Cargo Airport through a female Economic Adviser. Similar billions of naira was also paid for various “master plan” by Daniel that started and ended with PowerPoint presentation. He should be very thankful that successive administrations after him have not asked for the refund of billions of naira spent on PowerPoint presentations of disused “master plans”.

Since it is now obvious that Mr. Daniel is still hunted by his inglorious past , one will advise him to make honest and genuine reconciliation with God and those he had brazenly offended and ridiculed and stop using the press as the “fall guy”.

As his alter ego, one of his commissioners then, used to tell him: “For God’s sake, you are the Governor of this state”; I  say to this intolerant politician: “For God’s sake, you are no longer the Governor of this state”!

Tunde Oladunjoye

Publicity Secretary, All Progressives Congress (APC), Ogun State.