2027: Ogun PDP Chieftains Fight Dirty

• Name calling takes centre stage
• Adebutu as gov would’ve been calamitous – Running mate
• You’re a terrible ingrate – Adebutu fires back

The victory of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s candidate, Ladi Adebutu in the 2023 Ogun State governorship election would have been calamitous for people in the South West state.

This is the scathing declaration by his erstwhile running-mate, Adekunle Akinlade, who claimed that the State would have gone through an unfortunate and devastating period had Adebutu mistakenly emerged victorious at the polls.

Both Adebutu and Akinlade ran the joint PDP ticket in the March 18, 2023 gubernatorial election, but lost to Dapo Abiodun, the incumbent governor and flag bearer of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the State.

Shortly after the Supreme Court finally endorsed Abiodun’s victory following the long-drawn legal battle from the Election Tribunal through the Court of Appeal to the apex court, Adebutu and Akinlade fell out due to what insiders conversant with the problem described as “ego tripping”.

The insiders hinted that with the PDP structures and even close associates unable to settle the differences between both parties in their usual “family affairs” way, the stage was then set for the now seeming “full blown” public outbursts.

And it was Akinlade who fired the first salvo as he told journalists in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital that Adebutu’s defeat in the 2023 election was indeed a “calamity averted” for the Ogun people and residents.

Tagging his speech as “Divine Power of Prayers That Averts Calamity,” Akinlade disclosed how an imam had prayed for the PDP campaign team that God should not grant the opposition party a victory in 2023 if it would bring sorrow and backwardness to the state.

According to Akinlade, who was the candidate of the Allied People’s Movement (APM) in 2019 governorship, “We all said ‘Aameena” to the prayers offered by the Islamic cleric.

He further stated that; “By hindsight, I say, Alhamdulillahi that Allah averted that calamity from befalling Ogun State. Had Ladi emerged as the winner, it would have been a sad and devastating time for us as a people.

“In His glory and majesty, Allah grants a woman the grace to conceive; keeps her in good health all through the nine months; sets His face upon her to deliver the child; and then takes the infant’s life a minute after.

“As mortals, we will cry with anguish and ask what sin did the child commit to deserve such? We forget that He that gives, takes for a purpose.”

With no kind words for his former boss, Akinlade, who is popularly called Triple A, accused Adebutu, his colleague in the 8th Assembly of the House of Representatives, of lacking in mental capacity, integrity and temperament to run the office of a governor.

He also said; “In fact, Ladi is a 2-year-old child in a 62 year-old man’s body. I guess this explains why he acts on impulse like a child without caring about the consequences of his actions. In his delusion of self-grandeur, he lies effortlessly, sheds tears at will and induces self-pity.

“Come to think of it, why does his almost 90-year-old father still give him weekly feeding allowance? At first, I thought that it was the old man’s way of expressing his affection, but as I observed them closely, it became clear that even the old man knows that his 62-year old man- child lacks the capacity and ability to manage a monthly or annual handout”.

Offering insights into the issues in contention, Akinlade said it was most unfortunate that Adebutu announced his intention to re-contest the governorship poll come 2027 the same day Supreme Court quashed his case against Abiodun.

He said Adebutu, who hails from the same hometown with Governor Abiodun in Iperu-Remo should not have indicated and declared such selfish intention being that his kinsman will be vacating in 2023 after eight years.

“I sincerely draw these conclusions on his state of mind, because no rational thinking adult at age 62 will contemplate to aspire for the same office that his kinsman and brother, H.E Prince Dapo Abiodun, who is from the same compound, town, ward, local government and senatorial district, serving his second term of 4 years in office which ends in 2027. A man that lacks character, lacks honour,” he said.

But in a swift response to Akinlade’s sweeping allegations, Adebutu’s Media Aide, Afolabi Orekoya, described his boss’s former running mate as a “petty and terrible ingrate”, even as he liked the former PDP deputy governorship candidate to a “drowning man” who will clutch at any available straw to survive.

Orekoya quoted his principal as saying in a statement that; “We will not engage in his pettiness. But one thing I can assure you is, anything that he feels he can use to blackmail us, he should please go ahead.

“At the appropriate time, we will give him proper attention and respond.

“Akinlade is the most unfortunate thing that happened to PDP. And we were warned but we didn’t listen”.