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Says ex-governor yet to receive suspension document
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From Laide Raheem, Abeokuta
The media aide to the senator representing Ogun East senatorial district, Senator Gbenga Daniel, Steve Oliyide, has described the suspension slammed on the senator by the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state as a “joke”.
Oliyide, who stated this while addressing newsmen at Asoludero Court in Sagamu on Tuesday, disclosed that the senator has not received a formal letter of his suspension from the party, hence he remained a bona fide member of the APC in Ogun State.
Flanked at the press conference by some leaders and stakeholders of the APC in Ogun East senatorial district, Daniel’s Media Aide wondered why the leadership of a great party like APC in Ogun would announce a purported suspension of a serving senator and former state governor through a Facebook post by the State Director of Publicity of the party.
He said that since the announcement of the sanction in August 2025, neither the office of the senator nor he was communicated by the party.
It will be recalled that the State Working Committee of the APC had announced the indefinite suspension of Daniel from the party over alleged anti-party activities.
The party on November 6, 2025, reaffirmed the senator’s suspension, barring him from participating in any of the APC activities and warning that any engagements with him as a member of the party are invalid.
In the letter, dated October 3, 2025, jointly signed by the State Chairman, Chief Yemi Sanusi, and State Secretary, Tella Aderibigbe, Ogun APC said its decision had been communicated in an official correspondence to the APC National Chairman, drawing attention to what it described as Daniel’s “continued public disregard for party discipline” despite his suspension.
Oliyide, however, at the press conference, faulted the position of the party, insisting Daniel never received any official documents regarding his suspension from the party.
He challenged the Ogun APC leadership to produce the letter written to formally suspend the senator, as well as the acknowledgement of such a letter.
“Here, we are talking about a former governor of the state and a serving Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. What happens to the Chairman of the Party in the State? Where is the State Secretary of the party? It therefore suggests that such announcements cannot be given any seriousness, especially because there was no official communication about any offence, no allegation levied, no invitation to attend any Investigative Panel and no letter of suspension”, he added.
He decried the circulation of the unsigned statement on November 5, 2025, by the Ogun APC, reiterating the purported suspension by the state governor’s media aide.
“From the latest developments, we can now confirm that it is the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor who shared the unsigned Press Statement. We hereby respond as follows: Is it appropriate in a well-structured party like ours where we have a State Chairman, Secretary and other elected officials, for the Chief Press Secretary of the State government and an appointee, most especially the Spokesperson of the Governor who himself is an interested party or who has vested interest to speak for and on behalf of the All Progressive Congress in Ogun State?” Oliyide stated.
While noting that all is not well in Ogun APC, he declared that the alleged suspension of Senator Daniel by the APC was nothing but a concocted scheme to discredit him ahead of the 2027 poll.
Senator Daniel’s aide punctured the anti-party allegation levied against his boss, who, according to him, worked assiduously for APC’s victory in the 2019 and 2023 general polls, respectively.
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“We believe the treatment meted out to a former Governor and a serving Senator of the Federal Republic, where a purported suspension order was touted online by unofficial sources without any clear details of alleged offences and in a sweeping generalisation as anti-party activities, without investigation, negates the rule of law, breaches all democratic tenets and principles. It is also a breach of well-established rights to fair hearing and an affront to the principles of constitutional democracy anywhere in the world.
“In their claims, Daniel was allegedly investigated and suspended by the Excos of Ward 4 in Sagamu, where he is not even registered as a member. For the record, Otunba Gbenga Daniel is a registered member of the APC in Isote Ward 12. So, how can he be suspended in a Ward where he is not even registered”? He stated.
Oliyide added: “It is instructive to say that the victory of 2019 was largely from the Ogun East Senatorial District under the direction of Senator Gbenga Daniel, at that time when Oladipupo Adebutu and his faction of PDP had also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Senator Ibikunle Amosun’s APM for the 2019 governorship election. The APC lost elections and most of the votes in the Ogun West and Ogun Central Senatorial Districts.
“Apart from Ijebu North, where the PDP won because the late Senator Buruji Kashamu, the PDP gubernatorial candidate in that election, was from that local government, our party, the APC, won in all the other eight (8) local government councils with the support of Otunba Gbenga Daniel.
“In the build-up to the 2023 elections, Senator Gbenga Daniel commissioned an Independent Public Opinion Poll using a very credible pollster organisation to test the popularity of the APC against all other political parties in Ogun State. The result of that poll was quite damning for the APC. Several citizens, including party members, have become disillusioned about the dismal performance of our government, which has rubbed negatively on the public perception of our party.
“As a responsible party leader of the party, Daniel decided to move to the streets, embarked on Ward Tours (to all the 103 Wards in the nine Local Government Council areas, capping it up with 13 Mega rallies in all Ogun East Senatorial District), he rolled out massive empowerment programmes, thousands of scholarship awards, donated nine tractors, several cars among other items to reignite and stimulate the people’s interests in the party, a programme which he has been embarking on in the last 25 years and have impacted positively on the lives of over half a million people.
“Curiously, during these Ward tours, the people of Ogun East Senatorial District, where Daniel concentrated his efforts on, kept telling him to speak to them only about himself and Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu but to leave them to decide on the choice of their governorship candidate.
“This disillusionment and disinterest manifested in the outcome and results of the Governorship elections in March 2023 where the results were even far worse than what obtained in 2019. Our governor only managed a win with only 13,000 votes margin; lost in 7 out of the 9 local government councils in Ogun East including in all the three wards in Iperu where the governor came from, and also lost his Ikenne Local Government Council”.
He noted that the result of the 2023 election was bad enough, saying instead of the governor to find a way to unite the party, Senator Daniel and party members perceived to be loyal to him are being persecuted.
He further disclosed that a recent poll conducted in February 2025 showed that the only thing Ogun APC is clinging onto is the personality of, and emotion around, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
“We are therefore worried that Otunba Gbenga Daniel, a former Governor who governed the state for eight years, who raised the incumbent governor’s hands in endorsement during the 2019 election has been completely alienated from the party. Ditto for Governor Amosun who governed between 2011 and 2019. What is the fate of the party where the two longest-serving governors in the history of the state are completely ostracised?” He queried.
He urged the APC leadership at the national level to investigate how and why the president could have lost in the polling unit where the Governor voted and in the political ward of the Governor during the 2023 presidential elections.
“The dynamics of politics and formula for winning elections in Ogun State is usually of a Coalition Pattern; this strategy has always delivered victory to any political party in Ogun State since the return of democracy in 1999.
“It is therefore important to keep all the stakeholders within the party by taking a second look at the distribution structures in the State Party Executives as we approach a new Congress and, by extension, the elective positions in the Party and in future elections in the state, using areas and spheres of influence as parameters. We think both the party structures/positions and elective offices could be better distributed among all the stakeholders to protect all interests across ethnic and political divides, and all stakeholders are given a sense of belonging”, he submitted.
