Your forefathers ‘ll go to jail, Daniel replies Olurin

News Friday, March 25, 2011

*Says Ogun PDP now a shadow of itself

BY KOLADE LAREWAJU



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ABEOKUTA – GOVERNOR Gbenga Daniel of Ogun State, yesterday, continued his tough stance in the politics of the state by declaring that those who promised to send him to jail after his tenure would have their forefathers sent to jail.

The Governor declared categorically that the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, had become a shadow of itself in the state as a result of the protracted crisis rocking the party, noting it had derailed from the noble ideals upon which it was founded.

He dismissed the threat by the PDP gubernatorial candidate, Chief Adetunji Olurin (rtd), that he (Daniel) would be jailed after completing his tenure on May 29, 2011, saying he was being unduly maligned while taking time to explain to the people why he decided to dump the party.

Daniel who spoke in Ijebu-Ode during the disbursement of grants-in-aid to Community Development Associations, CDAs, in the state for various self-help projects organised by the Ministry of Community Development and Cooperatives where N50 million was disbursed to over 600 associations across the 20 local government areas of the state.

Speaking against the backdrop of the crisis that trailed the selection of candidates in the PDP, Daniel noted that the development had dealt a big blow to the party's relevance in the state and that he cannot afford to remain there.

He said "by the special grace of God, in about two months and few days, we will be handing over to a new government in Ogun State and on that occasion it will be exactly eight years that I have mounted the saddle of leadership.

I think I must thank God that history is being written that I remain the longest serving governor of Ogun State. All of these could not have happened without the active support of all of you. In eight years we have not finished all the jobs we wanted to do but what I want to say here today, anywhere that I go I will say

the same thing.

When all of you did not know the party called PDP, we thank God that we came and toured all the 236 wards in the state , appealing to you that despite the fact that we do not like the PDP, let us vote for the party because of our Baba; Chief Obasanjo. And I thank God that you agreed with me and we succeeded in the election. But I want to tell you that the PDP of the last eight years is quite different from the current PDP.

Jonathan, not part of the Ogun PDP conspiracy

"The PDP that you hear about, in Ogun State, has become a shadow of itself and as somebody well brought up, there is no way I can afford to support PDP in the state. The PDP of today where you conduct primaries in the open and some people changed the process through the backdoor; that cannot be a party I would associate with.

“But our president, Goodluck Jonathan, is of good character and I am sure he did his best. We worked assiduously for his presidential ambition. The President was not part of the conspiracy that occurred in Ogun PDP. But let us go and vote en masse for the president.

However, after that there is nothing else we can do than to support the new political party in Ogun State; that is PPN. The founding fathers of Ogun State built the state on truth and we cannot go back to falsehood.

"The person that they chose as their candidate said he would send the governor (me) to jail. I asked myself: Is this the kind of government you want to run? You have not been elected yet, you are threatening somebody that has performed well and transformed the state with jail without any justification.

They think civilian government is run like the military. They think the way the military trampled on people's right is the way government would be run in Ogun; their forefathers will go to jail.”