NEWS HEADLINES Daniel set to defect to PDP •As Labour Party denies merger •Close aides vow to remain in LP Sunday Tribune, 21.Sep.2014 Former Ogun State governor, Chief Gbenga Daniel, is set to dump the Labour Party (LP) for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), just as some of his close aides have vowed to remain in the Labour Party (LP). According to a source, who is very close the former governor, he had been under immense pressure to defect to the PDP and actively participate in the re-election bid of President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015. But the chairman of the Labour Party in the state, Comrade Niyi Osoba, dispelled the rumour that Daniel had already defected to the PDP and that the LP has merged with the PDP ahead of the 2015 election. Osoba, who addressed journalists at his Ijebu Ode homestead, said it was indeed true that the party structure in the state mandated Daniel to open discussion with leaders of other political parties and notable individuals that share the LP’s ideology and “our principle of AMOSUN MUST GO (AMG),” adding that the party came to that decision “as a result of the collective yearnings and demands of our members on the need to further strengthen our party and project.” Chief Daniel, who played a key role in the resurgence of the LP in Ogun State, was said to have held a meeting with LP leaders in his Ijebu Ode home last Sunday, where he revealed how he had been put under severe pressure by some of his friends in power to formally return to the party on whose ticket he served as governor for eight years. “But from Sunday last week to now that we are talking a lot of things have happened,” explained the source, “some of his aides, particularly Gbenga Nasir Isiaka, who contested the governorship on the platform of Peoples Party of Nigeria (PPN) and Sina Kawonise, perhaps his most trusted aide, who served as Commissioner for Information and later Managing Director of Compass Newspaper, have decided not to follow him to PDP.” The source hinted that though a meeting has been slated to hold today at Daniel’s Sagamu home, Asoludero Court, more than 80 per cent of the former governor’s supporters who have been following the governorship aspiration of Isiaka, Kawonise and Sarafa Isola, had chosen to remain in Labour to fight it out in 2015. “Remember that Kawonise represents Ogun East, Isiaka, Ogun West and Sarafa, Ogun Central. And these are the core bases of Daniel’s political formation in the state. But regardless of how today’s meeting goes, their position is not likely to change. They will remain with other supporters,” he said. When he was asked to comment on what happens if some members of the Labour Party eventually defect to other parties, Comrade Osoba said that he did not forsee that but that if it “happens, the party will subsist and reinvigorate strategically and is still surely will take over the reins of power from APC come 2015.” He seized the opportunity to enjoin all party members to stand firm and not rely on rumour, adding that Daniel is the most democratic personality he had ever seen and that “he shall ensure that we evaluate developments as they unfold. #OMOALAGA™
Posted on: Sun, 21 Sep 2014 11:24:12 +0000
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