The purported suspension of Senator Gbenga Daniel from the All Progressives Congress (APC) has collapsed under scrutiny, with stakeholders exposing a fundamental illegality: the former Ogun State Governor was suspended by a ward where he is not even registered.
In a devastating press conference on Tuesday, eleven prominent APC members led by retired General Olumuyiwa Okunowo revealed that Daniel, who is registered in Isote Ward 12 in Sagamu, was allegedly investigated and suspended by executives of Ward 4 – a different ward entirely.
“Otunba Daniel was allegedly investigated and suspended by the Excos of Ward 4 in Sagamu, where he is not even registered as a member,” the stakeholders declared. “For the records, 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?”
The procedural absurdity doesn’t end there. The suspension saga, which began in August 2025, was first announced not through official party channels but via a Facebook post by someone claiming to be the party’s Director of Publicity – “an appointment which hitherto was unknown to several members of the party in the State.”
More damning was the absence of due process. “There was no official communication about any offence, no allegation levied, no invitation to attend any Investigative Panel, no letter of suspension,” the group stated, noting that no journalist was shown any official documentation.
The situation escalated when Lekan Adeniran, Governor Dapo Abiodun’s Chief Press Secretary, issued an unsigned press statement on November 5, 2025, reiterating the suspension. The stakeholders questioned why a government appointee, rather than elected party officials, was speaking for the APC.
“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… the Spokesperson of the Governor, who himself is an interested party… to speak for and on behalf of the All Progressive Congress in Ogun State?” they asked.
The stakeholders were blunt about the motive: “We have no doubt, and let no one be deceived, that this is all connected to the Politics of 2027 and especially the APC ticket for the Ogun East Senatorial District.”
They presented compelling electoral data showing Daniel’s indispensability to the APC. In 2019, while still in the PDP, Daniel mobilised support for Abiodun at Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s directive, delivering victory from Ogun East when the party was “on the verge of losing.” The APC won with just 19,517 votes, the narrowest margin in state history.
In 2023, Daniel won his Senate seat with a historic 115,147 votes while Abiodun managed only 86,000 in the same district. Yet the Governor won the governorship by merely 13,000 votes statewide and lost seven of nine local governments in Ogun East, including all three wards in his hometown of Iperu and his entire Ikenne Local Government.
“Our Governor lost the Governorship seat in the Ward and the Local Government of the Governor,” the stakeholders emphasised, calling it a “scary” trend for 2027.
They detailed a pattern of persecution: Abiodun refused to attend Daniel’s 2022 campaign launch despite being invited as Special Guest of Honour, instead instructing party members to boycott and serving queries to public servants who attended. During Daniel’s 103-ward tour, “our Governor never attended a single one.”
When Daniel chartered an aircraft for stakeholders to attend his Senate inauguration, the Secretary to the State Government allegedly called passengers – including traditional rulers – ordering them to disembark “with a tone of threat.”
Most egregious was the midnight demolition of DATKEM Plaza, a five-story property belonging to Daniel’s wife, on September 10, 2023, just two weeks before its commissioning. Demolition notices have since been posted on other Daniel properties, despite all having statutory approvals now before the courts.
The stakeholders warned that Governor Abiodun’s camp “is holding wholesale to all the State Party Executive positions from the Ward level to the State,” demanding a return to Ogun’s traditional coalition politics that “has always delivered victory to any political party in Ogun State since the return of Democracy in 1999.”
“The earlier we fix this tear in the party before it becomes a rent, the better for us all,” they concluded, urging national leadership to investigate how President Tinubu lost in Abiodun’s own polling unit and ward during the 2023 presidential election.
With the suspension lacking legal foundation and persecution documented, Daniel appears vindicated while Abiodun faces accusations of destroying the party for personal 2027 ambitions.
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