Gov. Dapo Abiodun Beats His Senator Amosun-Backed Challengers Akinlade, Otegbeye, others to Win Ogun APC Nomination for Governor. He’ll face Ladi Adebutu in a rematch. - TheDispatch Online

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Friday, 27 May 2022

Gov. Dapo Abiodun Beats His Senator Amosun-Backed Challengers Akinlade, Otegbeye, others to Win Ogun APC Nomination for Governor. He’ll face Ladi Adebutu in a rematch.


Abeokuta: By Our  REPORTER
Published, Friday, May 27, 2022


IN A LANDSLIDE VICTORY THAT REPRESENTED A RESOUNDING rebuke of Senator Ibikunle Amosun, immediate past governor of Ogun State, Gov. Dapo Abiodun won the All Progressives Congress (APC) nomination for a second term on Thursday at MKO Abiola International Stadium, Kuto, Abeokuta, the capital city of Ogun State, turning back an Amosun-fueled primary challenge and delivering the former governor, whose fiasco is due on Monday, May 30, his biggest electoral setback of the 2022 primaries.


Senator Amosun had made defeating Prince Abiodun a top priority, seeking retribution of the defeat of his only sponsored candidate, Abdulkadri Akinlade, aka Triple A, in 2019 election in Ogun State. 


Senator Amosun personally recruited former members of House of Representatives and formeber member of Ogun State Board of Internal Revenue Service to run for governor, worked to clear the field for him, recorded radio and television ads, held rallies on the platform of a newly formed party, and even spent over N2 billion from his political accounts to help him.

Abiodun, 61, won leading by roughly 100 percentage points with 1,168 votes and others scoring zero in the presence of six agents of the six aspirants, members of Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Ogun State, all security agencies and members of APC Electoral Committee, though the five other aspirants,namely, Olubiyi Otegbeye, BOT, Abdukadir Akinlade, Tripple A, Mrs Modele Sarafa- Yussuf, Remilekun Bakare and Mr Owodunni Opayem deliberately avoided the venue of the governorship primary. 



The outcome on Thursday exposed the limits of Senator Amosun's influence in his party’s base, marking the second consecutive election seasons a candidate he had backed for governor had lost. It also was a sign of the waning potency of SIA’s obsession with relitigating seriousness.


Prince Dapo Abiodun’s victory sets up a rematch of his 2019 battle with Oladipo Adebutu, 62, who won the Peoples Democratic Party nomination with wide marging to defeat all his opponents on Wednesday,  May 25, 2022 in what will be one of the most closely watched governor’s races in the nation in 2023. His most urgent imperative is reuniting a APC fractured by the divisive primary.

Standing on the hard tracks of MKO Abiola International Stadium after the announcement of his victory, Prince Abiodun rhetorically spiked his traducers. He thanked all his supporters.


Abiodun, who described the results of the exercise as overwhelming and Tsunami like, commended the delegates and party supporters, for their peaceful behaviour, during the event.


He promised to work more for the development of the people and State, saying the reward for hard work, is more work.


He implored the people of the State and party supporters to shun campaign of calumny and join hands with him for the development of the State. 


However, few hours into the conduct of the exercise, Akinlade and Otegbeye passed vote of no confidence on the 5-man election panel under the Chairmanship of Chief Wale Ohu.


They declared that Chief Ohu, as the chairman of the gubernatorial primary election in the state, lacked the capacity and integrity to conduct “an objective and the impartial” gubernatorial primary election for the state on the ground that “he is a partisan politician”.


In a statement issued in Abeokuta and jointly signed by Akinlade and Otegbeye, and available to thedispatch, they queried the credentials of Ohu to have earned him the chairmanship of the election committee, alleging that previous exercises which he handled for APC in the state still accounted for the prevailing disaffection among party members.


They alleged that the Ohu-led APC governorship election panel did not make available to them, the delegate's form as stipulated in the guidelines for the conduct of the exercise, but made such available to Governor Dapo Abiodun.


The duo said though, they would participate in the primary election because of their loyalty to the party and respect for its leadership, they, however, warned that post gubernatorial primary election dispute may be inevitable if the election panel failed to make available the authentic delegates list to the other aspirants before the commencement of the exercise.


Thedispatch investigation reveals that the delegates lists earlier allegedly to have been doctored were not put to test of authentication, on which planks the protest of the duo of Akinlade and Otegbeye rests.

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