While world leaders have continued to condole with President Goodluck Jonathan on the demise of his brother, Meni, former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, has refused to a send letter of condolence to Jonathan’s family, lending credence to unending reports of a cold feud between the two leaders.
In his letter, President Ernest Bai Koroma of Sierra Leone expressed his deep sadness with news of the death and extended “sincere condolences” to the president and “the entire Jonathan family for this irreparable loss … on behalf of the Government and people of Sierra Leone and on my own personal behalf.”
Malwaian President, Joyce Banda in her own letter, wrote: “It is with deep shock and sadness that I learnt of the death of your brother.” Conveying “sincere condolences” on behalf of herself, her family and government and people of Malawi, she prayed that Almighty God grants President Jonathan and his family the grace and comfort during this mourning period.
However, the status of former governor of Ogun State, Otunba Gbenga Daniel in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been identified to be playing a major role in the deepening crisis between Jonathan and Obasanjo, who is currently in Ghana to monitor the presidential election.
Obasanjo and Daniel had been sworn enemies since the build-up to the 2011 Ogun State governorship election, when the latter led a host of his supporters to the Peoples Party of Nigeria (PPN) to campaign against PDP. Both PDP and PPN would go on to lose the election to Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and its candidate, Ibikunle Amosun.
While Jonathan has found it impossible to sever ties with Daniel, who chaired the southwest arm of the 2011 Presidential Campaign Committee, Obasanjo believes Daniel’s sin of publicly campaigning against his own party is simply unforgiveable, notwithstanding the mandate to PDP Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, to reunite all aggrieved members with the party.
Daniel’s blossoming relationship with Jonathan, it was learnt, is responsible for the appointment of some of the former governor’s supporters as members of the Federal Government’s Subsidy Re-investment and Employment Programme (SURE–P).
President Obasanjo stayed away from the last meeting of the party’s Board of Trustees, which he chaired until April 2012. The meeting was called to discuss the board’s next chairman. His absence has been linked to his preference for Dr. Ahmadu Ali, a former national chairman of the party, in contrast to Jonathan’s for Chief Tony Anenih.
Meanwhile, each of the two PDP factions in Ogun State — that led by Adebayo Dayoand financed Prince Buruji Kashamu and that led by Senator Dipo Odujirin, which is loyal to Obasanjo — has already denied the former governor.
In a statement signed by the faction led by Dayo, the national leadership of PDP was reminded of its “onerous duty” to discourage the “hermaphroditic tendencies,” of the former governor, saying he had misled the PDP-led Federal Government into appointing card-carrying PPN members into the committee coordinating the Subsidy Re-investment and Employment Programme (SURE–P) in Ogun State at the expense of the loyal PDP members.
He maintained that Chairman of the committee, Mr. Kayode Ajibola, and the other three members — Mr. Kayode Adebayo, Aare Tunde Alabi and Mrs. Iyabo Apampa — are “unapologetic members of the PPN.”
The Kashamu faction warned Jonathan on the dangers of fraternising with a former governor who is currently standing trial for economic and financial crimes.
But the OGD faction, in a statement signed by Daniel’s media assistant, Gbenro Adebanjo, countered the claims of both groups, describing them as false and misinforming.
Adebanjo claimed that Otunba Gbenga Daniel remains the father figure of the PDP in Ogun State and that he remains an active member of the party, having nurtured it into prominence in the state.
He argued that it is a fact of history that Daniel built the PDP into a formidable political party in Ogun, recalling that when some people tried to play politics of exclusion, their game plan failed woefully and the fortune of the party nosedived.
Adebanjo expressed confidence that since attempts to exclude him failed in the past, future attempts will also fail because Daniel is involved in the ongoing peace-building process and will continue to be involved in moves to rescue the party from where people who initiated politics of exclusion led it to. He added that the sincerity of Daniel has never been in doubt and that all the relevant organs of the party at all levels are aware of this and relate with him accordingly.
Asides Jonathan, National Publicity Secretary of the party, Chief Olisah Metuh is one other high-ranking PDP official to give green light on Daniel’s full-fledged re-admittance, saying that although the Ogun politician party, he made an approach to come back.
But Metuh said he was not sure if Daniel had formalised his return to the party but he could confirm his interest in the party and his readiness to work with the party. He promised that the party’s guidelines, procedures and due process for those who want to return to the party would be followed, and that as a former governor, Daniel will have a role to play in the party as long as he realises that he chose a wrong path [in 2011] and he has purged himself of it.
