Says outgoing governor is a “latecomer attempting to rewrite history”*
ABEOKUTA — The media office of Senator Otunba Gbenga Daniel (OGD) on Tuesday rejected claims attributed to outgoing Ogun State Governor Dapo Abiodun, dismissing as fiction the governor’s alleged assertions that he played decisive roles in Daniel’s political ascent in both 2003 and 2023.
In a strongly worded press statement dated April 29, 2026, the OGD Media Office said Abiodun made the claims at a private gathering in Iperu, his home base, and questioned why a governor confident in his record would choose a closed room rather than a public forum to advance such arguments.
“Statements built on fiction are best circulated in rooms where they cannot be immediately interrogated,” the statement read.
On the claim that Abiodun collapsed his structure in support of Daniel’s emergence as Ogun State governor in 2003, Daniel’s camp offered a counter-narrative grounded in primary records.
The statement acknowledged that Abiodun did contest in the PDP governorship primaries alongside seven other aspirants, but characterised his campaign as “the most vicious” against Daniel among the field. Daniel won the December 23, 2002 primary with a delegate count of 127 to 12.
The statement further noted that Abiodun was the last among the aspirants to extend a post-primary handshake to Daniel, reportedly preoccupied at the time with recovering campaign materials and funds from delegates he suspected had not voted for him.
In a detail presented as context, the statement recalled that Daniel’s administration later appointed Abiodun as pioneer chairman of the Gateway Oil & Gas Committee, a role through which the state’s oil and gas company was established.
The statement also cited Abiodun’s “woeful” 2015 defeat to the late Senator Buruji Kashamu of the PDP in the Ogun East Senatorial District race as evidence of the limited reach of any structure Abiodun claims to command.
It was Daniel’s own support, the statement contended, that proved decisive in 2019 when Abiodun’s governorship bid was at risk due to internal APC divisions and Senator Ibikunle Amosun’s opposition. Daniel, then a PDP chieftain, was approached and agreed to mobilise his structure for Abiodun, publicly raising Abiodun’s hand before thousands of supporters and members of the press.
On Abiodun’s alleged claim that he was instrumental to Daniel’s emergence as Ogun East senator in 2023, the Daniel camp was categorical in its denial.
“The suggestion that his emergence as senator was a product of Governor Abiodun’s backstage choreography is not only false, it is an insult to every voter in Ogun East Senatorial District,” the statement said.
The camp disputed Abiodun’s claim of convincing frontrunners to step aside, saying the primaries were already nearing conclusion by the time any such intervention allegedly took place. “A man who arrives after the contest to claim credit for its outcome is not a kingmaker; he is a latecomer attempting to rewrite history,” the statement declared.
In a pointed detail, the OGD camp noted that despite being duly invited, Abiodun, his commissioners, and administration officials failed to attend any of Daniel’s 13 local government rallies across Ogun East’s nine LGAs or his ward-level campaign tour covering all 103 wards. The statement alleged that government officials and APC members received last-minute instructions on October 1, 2022, to stay away from the official campaign flag-off the following day. It added that some civil servants who attended the Sunday event were subsequently issued queries.
The camp pointed to Daniel’s eventual general election victory as evidence the mandate needed no external scaffolding. According to INEC records cited in the statement, Daniel’s margin was historic for Ogun State senatorial contests and no petition was filed at the election tribunal challenging the result.
A Direct Question to the Governor
Turning the argument back on Abiodun, the statement demanded that the governor identify precisely which structure he claims to have delivered, referencing the governor’s inability to deliver even his own ward and polling unit during elections held weeks after the 2023 presidential vote.
The camp also accused Abiodun of spending three years allegedly deploying state machinery to push Daniel out of the APC, efforts it described as having ultimately failed.
“Senator Daniel’s political roots in Ogun State run deeper than the temporary leverage of any sitting governor,” the statement said.
The OGD Media Office closed with a challenge to the governor to address substantive governance concerns rather than attribute critical press coverage to political opponents. “If there is anyone who needs to search his conscience, Governor Dapo Abiodun need only look in the mirror.”
Abiodun’s office had not issued a public response to the statement as of the time of filing this report.