Reported by: Ijeoma G | Edited by: Oravbiere Osayomore Promise.
Ogun State Governor Dapo Abiodun has accused Senator Gbenga Daniel, his predecessor and the current representative of Ogun East Senatorial District, of orchestrating a campaign of negative media attacks against him, despite what the governor described as his decisive role in ensuring Daniel’s emergence as senator. The accusation, delivered during an Ogun East All Progressives Congress (APC) stakeholders’ meeting on Tuesday, April 28, 2026, deepened a political rift that has been building since the governor was controversially endorsed as the party’s consensus candidate for the 2027 senatorial election barely a week earlier.
Speaking before a gathering of party leaders, former lawmakers, local government chairmen and councillors from across the nine local governments of Ogun East, Abiodun recounted what he called a history of political sacrifice that had gone unacknowledged. “I was here when Governor Daniel was governor. I actually ran against Governor Daniel then,” Abiodun said. “But as soon as he emerged from the primaries, I was one of the first to congratulate him. I gave him all my structures. I delivered them to him and supported him.”
The governor’s remarks were an attempt to remind his audience of a past that predates both his own tenure and Daniel’s return to elective office. Running against Daniel in the 2003 governorship primaries, Abiodun had lost, but he claimed to have quickly rallied behind his opponent. Two decades later, he said, that spirit of party loyalty had not been reciprocated. “I know what I did for Governor Daniel to become a senator. I have never said this publicly, and I am saying it now,” Abiodun declared. “I know what my intervention was to get them to step down for him to emerge as senator. Segun Adesegun is here. Senator Mustapha, they are here. They were the frontrunners in that election.”
Abiodun also asserted that he had personally facilitated Daniel’s reintegration into the APC after the senator’s earlier political sojourn outside the party. “I held his hand to ensure that he was integrated back into the party. These are facts,” the governor stressed. “We entrusted it to him. If Governor Daniel now believes that the only way to repay me is by sponsoring negative media attacks against me, I leave him to his conscience.”
The governor’s outburst followed weeks of escalating tension between the two APC leaders. On April 20, 2026, a caucus meeting of Ogun East APC leaders at Adeola Odutola Hall in Ijebu-Ode endorsed Abiodun as the party’s consensus candidate for the 2027 senatorial election. Senator Daniel, who was reportedly denied entry to the venue, addressed his supporters outside, declaring any decision taken in his absence “null and void”. Since then, Daniel has purchased his own nomination and expression of interest forms from the APC, openly defying the consensus arrangement.
Daniel’s camp has dismissed the endorsement as a “kangaroo arrangement” lacking in due process. The Bola Ahmed Tinubu Otunba Gbenga Daniel (BATOGD) Movement, a grassroots political platform backing the senator, alleged that key stakeholders were “baited” into attending the meeting under the false impression that it was an official senatorial caucus gathering. “Most of the leaders, including our leader, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, were baited into attending the event under the guise of a Caucus Meeting of Stakeholders of the Ogun East Senatorial District,” the group’s Director-General, retired General Olumuyiwa Okunowo, told a press conference on April 23. “It was only upon arrival that many discovered that more than half of the people in the hall were not even qualified to attend a senatorial caucus meeting.”
The political feud has taken on increasingly aggressive dimensions. On April 22, armed police personnel in an armoured personnel carrier cordoned off Daniel’s residence in the Government Reservation Area of Ijebu-Ode, effectively shutting down a planned BATOGD community assessment and empowerment rally. An aide to the senator described the deployment as a political siege designed to intimidate supporters and disrupt a programme that was meant to benefit thousands of constituents.
At the same time, a civil society group, the Centre for the Advocacy of Human Rights and Social Justice, has accused Daniel of orchestrating a “tired script of deceit” against the governor. In a statement on April 27, the group’s leader, Olufemi Akindele, dismissed a document titled “31 Questions for Governor Dapo Abiodun” as a “crude and libellous fabrication” circulated by the senator’s camp.
Despite the internal discord, Abiodun struck a conciliatory note at the end of his address, expressing confidence that Ogun East APC would remain united ahead of the 2027 elections. He also reaffirmed his support for Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola, popularly known as YAYI, as the party’s preferred candidate for the Ogun governorship race, and pledged strong backing for President Bola Tinubu’s re-election bid. “We are equally confident that Ogun East, alongside the entire state, will stand united to deliver Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola – YAYI as the next Governor of Ogun State,” Abiodun said. “Together, we will also deliver resounding support for Bola Ahmed Tinubu.”
As the two former allies trade accusations and position themselves for the battle ahead, the APC in Ogun State appears increasingly fractured. The party’s state publicity secretary, Olufemi Nuberu, has publicly rejected claims of division, but the spectacle of a sitting governor locked in a highly personal war of words with a senator who once shared his political roof tells a different story. For the people of Ogun East, the real question is no longer whether there will be a contest for the senatorial ticket, but whether the scars of this intraparty conflict will heal before the general election campaign begins.
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