…Digs a Hole in Front of Where Today’s Inauguration Lecture’ll Hold

…People Suggest Alternative Routes/Venues

Amosun’s bulldozer

The lecture venue

Ademola Adegbamigbe

On the pretext of road construction, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, not only completely closed the road leading to MKO Abiola Stadium, Abeokuta venue of the inauguration of Prince Dapo Abiodun as Governor of Ogun State, Tunde Oladunjoye said, he also dug a deep and wide gulley in front of June 12 Cultural Centre, where the inauguration lecture is holding today.

Governor Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State

These are contained in a post on the Ogun Daily Core’s whatsApp group by Oladunjoye, one of Abiodun’s campaign aides. He added: “Not done, Amosun left a huge hip of sand and a bulldozer at the entrance. The question is: Would this have happened is it is Amosun’s puppet that is to be inaugurated as Governor?”

In an FB post, Ayo Ojeniyi revealed: “Vindictiveness! ARO Onifa Gogoro refused to release a kobo for Dapo’s Inauguration. Osoba contacted the Jagaban who provided all the cowries needed supported by Kashamu. Now, SIA has now blocked all the possible centres that can be used for the Inauguration. The road leading to MKO Abiola Stadium is suddenly under heavy reconstruction same with the front of Cultural Centre. What to do, move the Inauguration to the Govt House or Ake Palace or OGBC Compound !! So simple !!”

However, Yinka Olayemi, a member of the group reacted: “Yes. I told someone yesterday that those attending today’s event will have no choice than to drive through NNPC via Stadium to Cultural Centre.”

“It is over. The outgoing governor can never and never run foul of the Constitution of the country by extending his day in office.”

Dapo Abiodun

Also, Femi Oteweso, made another suggestion: “We saw it today too, but we all expressed the opinion that people can take the M.K.O Stadium to access the June 12 Cultural Center for the event.”

Richard Akinnola, a social critic, extended his advice further: “When Rabiu Kwankwanso was denied the use of Eagle Square, Abuja to launch his presidential ambition, he switched over to a street at Utako, near Chida hotel and it was a huge success. Dapo Abiodun, take over a popular street in Abeokuta, do your swearing-in and in 30 minutes it’s all over. You can even be sworn-in your house. No law says it should be in a stadium. Amosun cannot stop you from being sworn-in in your house. Leave him with his pettiness. A week after, hold a major celebration rally at the Stadium. End of story.”

Amosun has, ab initio, been full of sour grapes on the candidature of Dapo Abiodun. He did not support Abiodun, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate but threw his weight behind Adekunle Akinlade, the candidate of the Allied Peoples Movement (APM)

The governor gave the reason for his choice at a church service to mark the 60th birthday of the Archbishop of Lagos Ecclesiastical Province and Bishop, Diocese of Remo, Most Reverend Michael Olusina Fape, at Our Saviour’s Anglican Church, Ikenne, Ogun State, in January.

“I won’t take our people for granted and it is for us not to have violence in the state and to continue to live together in peace, that all of us in APC, in Ogun State, took the decision.

“It is unfortunate that the people fighting us right and left do not know what we have all agreed, two years ago, that in the spirit of fairness, justice, equity and peace in Ogun.”

Amosun carried his hatred of Abiodun to a ridiculous extent when, on the day of the APC mega rally in Abeokuta , he personally supervised the destruction of the latter’s campaign posters. That was before the program kicked off. And when it did, thugs loyal to him were throwing sachets of water and other projectiles freely, even when President Muhammadu Buhari was sitting there.

That day, the look on Amosun’s face as he sat  among the APC top notchers on the podium was as grotesque as a gargoyle’s. His visage that day, perhaps, suggested that if he had with him a bottle of sniper or acid, he could pour it on Abiodun’s thyroid gland.

However, In a press statement, entitled, “Be Wary of Mischief Makers,  signed by Rotimi Durojaiye, Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, on Thursday, 23 May, 2019, the Ogun State Government denied the charge.

The statement reads: “The attention of the Ogun State Government has been drawn to several unfounded allegations and innuendos trending in the public space with regard to the upcoming inauguration of the new Administration. Two of such unsavoury allegations are worthy of mention here. The first was that Government deliberately blocked the road and approach leading to the June 12 Cultural Centre venue of pre-Inauguration activities. The second, rather more reckless, was the story credited the Police Public Relations Officer, Ogun State Command, that the Police had uncovered a phantom ploy to disrupt the upcoming inauguration activities. We will hope that the PPRO was misquoted.

Suffice to say that our Administration has earned a reputation for not engaging in needless media war, particularly puerile allegations and innuendoes from political jobbers and mischief makers with purpose to serve. Our disposition therefore remained to maintain stoic and dignified silence, even in the face of criminal untruths and unfair provocation as we are confident that posterity and chroniclers of history will properly situate our respective roles.

Having said that, we say emphatically that the allegations alluded to above are figments of the imagination of the mischief makers. The on-going construction works between NNPC and Kuto Roundabout started over a year ago. Ironically, what the Contractors are doing in the past few days is to tidy up that axis to ensure more comfortable motoring experience for members of the public who will receive President Muhammadu Buhari on Saturday, and by implication to make attendance at the inauguration programme more convenient. That lofty objective was achieved and today the pre-inauguration programme of the incoming Administration is the earliest beneficiary of that thoughtful intervention. As for the phantom disruption tale, we have engaged the Police authorities to stress the real danger in dishing out manifestly untrue, unproven and de-marketing statements to the public. We have received assurances that no one will become a tool in the hands of the Fifth Columnists who do not wish Ogun State well.

We assure all stakeholders that we shall do all within our power and resources to keep the hard earned peace in this blessed State. As the sitting Administration, we intend to sustain the appropriate environment for the new Administration to take off orderly.”