Ogun Gov, Daniel Feud Over Demolition Notice Festers

Former governor of Ogun State, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, has insisted that the building contravention cum demolition notices served on three of his properties in the Sagamu area of the state by the incumbent governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun, through the state’s Ministry of Urban and Regional Planning last Friday, were politically motivated.

Consequently, Daniel, who is the serving senator representing Ogun East District, accused the incumbent governor of scheming to institute a political crisis in the state through the action.

Daniel said the Abiodun-led administration lacked the moral right to paste such notices on people’s properties when such had not been pasted on his private residence, located along the Iperu -Ode-Isara Highway in his Iperu country home, which is virtually devoid of any setback.

Addressing a press conference yesterday at his Asoludero Court private residence in Sagamu, Daniel, who was represented by the head of his media office, Steve Oliyide, challenged Abiodun to make a public presentation of the same quit and demolition notices served on his private residence in Iperu Remo, which is facing a major federal road, if the state government has no ulterior motive in targeting his three properties.

The state government had in a statement issued in Abeokuta, signed by the governor’s special adviser on Information and Strategy, Kayode Akinmade said the allegations levelled against the incumbent state governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun by his predecessor, Otunba Gbenga wherein he accused the former of politically persecuting him as baseless and denied that the current administration under the leadership of Abiodun was embarking on any political vendetta against anyone.

Speaking further at the press conference, which had former commissioners, including Akogun Kola Onadipe, a building specialist, in attendance, Oliyide declared that Daniel’s political fate in 2027 rests solely on his people, who, he stressed, had been supporting his political career since 2003.

Speaking against the backdrop of Abiodun’s 2027 Senatorial ambition, whose banner was conspicuously displayed on the street leading to Daniel’s private residence in Sagamu, Oliyide said Daniel’s re-election back to the National Assembly is a party’s procedure, which is beyond Abiodun.

“The time for this bitter politics is not now, particularly when it is coming at a time when Otunba Gbenga Daniel is at the vanguard of pushing for the creation of the Ijebu State, of which Governor Dapo is not in support”.

Debunking the allegations, the state government, through Akinmade, emphatically stated that the Ministry of Urban and Regional Planning that served the Quit and Demolition notice was only exercising its statutory function under the urban renewal initiatives of the Abiodun-led administration, “as exemplified by the affordable housing estates and the yellow roof revolution.”

He explained that the urban renewal initiative, which had been carried out in the Ibara GRA in Abeokuta, the state capital, was only being extended to Sagamu and Ijebu-Ode GRAs. As such, it calls for periodic audits of building permits across the state’s towns and cities.