Atiku’s campaign DG Gbenga Daniel to consider joining APC

Less than a week after he wrote the national chairman of the People’s Democratic Party about his decision to quit “active and partisan” politics, former Ogun State governor Gbenga Daniel may be considering joining the ruling All Progressives Congress.

Gbenga Daniel contested for the position of the national chairman of the PDP in 2017 but withdrew shortly before the election took place.

He was the director-general of the Atiku Abubakar Presidential Campaign organisation for the 2019 general elections.

His media aide Ayo Giwa said in a communique on Sunday evening that Daniel’s political associates met with him earlier on Sunday to discuss his retirement from active politics.

Giwa said the associates rejected Daniel’s decision to quit politics and asked him to instead defect to APC from the PDP, which they noted, treated the former two-term governor of Ogun State “with disdain”.

“Members are hereby pleading with Otunba Gbenga Daniel to take them to the All Progressive Congress (APC) having supported the Governorship candidate of the party to win the election in the March 9, 2019 Governorship elections in Ogun State,” Giwa said in the communique.

Daniel, Giwa said, later told the journalists who were at the meeting that “he has listened to his people and will consider what he heard carefully.”

Although he reached the peak of his political career as a member of the PDP, Daniel between 2011 and 2015 was a member of the Peoples Party of Nigeria (PPN) and Labour Party.

Daniel said in a letter dated March 14, 2019, and addressed to the national chairman of the PDP Uche Secondus that he was quitting politics for “personal” reasons.

Before then, he openly supported the candidate of All Progressives Congress Dapo Abiodun in the March 9 governorship election. That decision, he said in the letter, was because the candidate of the PDP was “not acceptable to the leadership” of the party.

“Whereas the national leadership of our party, recognized one candidate for the 2019 election, by court pronouncements another candidate, and in compliance with those court orders, which the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) recognised was on the INEC list,” Daniel said.

“The candidates recognized by INEC were not acceptable to the national leadership of the party. Our situation was then compounded because the candidate which the court and INEC recognised and accepted as valid has also been expelled by the party.”

That situation made him respond to “the yearnings of our people and joined others in emplacing an administration that we believe will better serve the interests of our people than what currently exists.”

Abiodun eventually won the election, defeating APM’s Adekunle Akinlade, who enjoyed the support of the current state governor Ibikunle Amosun, who is a member of APC.