Following the uncovering of his treacherous tactics during the March 18 gubernatorial election in Ogun State, senator-elect and ex governor, Gbenga Daniel, is currently licking his wounds, stranded in France. Daniel had hopped into a plane and jetted out to France in a frantic bid to ingratiate himself to the President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, but feelers from the western European country indicate that, in a clear demonstration of poetic justice, the plan has backfired quite spectacularly.
Sources close to Tinubu conveyed their unhappiness with Daniel’s dirty tactics. Their grouse is that the APC had accommodated him well following his defection from PDP shortly after his ex-principal, Atiku Abubakar, lost the 2019 presidential election. He was treated with utmost courtesy, politically rehabilitated, and fully integrated into the Ogun APC structure. Indeed, it was almost as if he had been of the APC stock all along. He regained control of his businesses which the immediate past governor of the state had seized. On top of it all, he was given a senatorial ticket that he had not earned and should not have had.
But what did Daniel do? He teamed up with his ex-pals and party and formed an alliance against the Dapo Abiodun government even when he had just won election on the APC ticket. It is no wonder, then, that members of Tinubu’s inner circle have reportedly frozen Daniel’s desperate bid to gain access to their principal, and Daniel is stuck in France bemoaning the wages of his duplicity.
He is making frantic calls, sending SMS and reaching out to prominent political elite to facilitate a meeting with Tinubu who, had his (Daniel’s) ways been straight, would have met him without hesitation. But he is making no headway because he has done the party wrong by supporting the opposition.
The point has been made clear that Tinubu and his men believe that Daniel’s claim to have left PDP is all a ruse. He kept all his structures intact and deployed them in the bid to make Ladi Adebutu governor by subterfuge. But his house of treachery collapsed on him and he is desperately in search of a rescue.
But that’s not where the story ends. The gist is that even members of the Adebutu camp are not comfortable with the Shagamu-born double dealer. They believe that having entered into an undertaking with them and having been properly remunerated (to the tune of billions) for his efforts, he should shelve all pretence and team up openly with them. They want no half-measures but Daniel is a master of half measures. He jetted out to France to perfect his political craft.
On its part, the Ogun APC is, quite naturally, suspicious of the double-dealing senator-elect who did not even wait to be properly inaugurated as senator before unveiling his Judas credentials!
Now, having seen his desire to meet Tinubu truncated, the “guy man” quickly changed the story and said that he was only in Paris on a holiday!! What a political holiday! But insiders know that it is merely a face-saving tactic by the man some are now calling Dirty Daniel.
