APM ENDORSEMENT: YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN, ADEBUTU’S FATHER, PDP AND REMO STAKEHOLDERS TELL HON LADI ADEBUTU

Yesterday’s endorsement of APM governorship candidate in Ogun State, Hon Abdul Kabir Akinlade by Hon Ladi Adebutu may have been dead on arrival. This is due to the series of negative reactions that have trailed the endorsement of Governor Ibikunle Amosun’s favoured party, APM and its candidate, Abdul Kabir Akinlade by Hon Ladi Adebutu, member House of Reps, Remo Federal Constituency and a factional PDP governorship candidate in the State.

While a similar endorsement of APC candidate, Prince Dapo Abiodun by a former governor of the State, Otunba Gbenga Daniel has been applauded by stakeholders across the State, particularly in Remo Land, negative reactions have continued to trail the endorsement of APM’s Akinlade by Hon Ladi Adebutu.

The first rebuttal that followed the news, which first broke on social media was from the Ogun State PDP Youths who described Adebutu’s endorsement of Akinlade as disappointing and self-serving.

The group under the aegis of PDP Youth Vanguard expressed its unwillingness to follow the directive of Ladi Adebutu to support Hon Abdul-Kabir Adekunle Akinlade, candidate of the Allied People’s Movement, APM for Sasturday’s govbernorship election in the State.

The statement reads, ‘we are highly disappointed in Hon Ladi Adebutu for supporting Governor Ibikunle Amosun , who destroyed Ogun State in the eight years that he has been in the saddle in the Gateway State’.

‘Amosun contributed to the challenges the PDP is having in the State today and this is a man that has even been suspended by his party, All Progressives Congress (APC) over anti-party activities. How could Hon Adebutu stoop so low to support Governor Amosun and Hon Akinlade and direct us to vote for APM on Saturday after he had gone on national television to say he would not leave the PDP, even if the Court case does not go his way, but work with the person that wins the case’, he queried.

The group’s leader, Adekunle Alagbe described Hon Ladi Adebutu’s decision as, ‘selfish, anti-party, embarrassing and shameful, adding that such an action should not have come from a supposed party man’.

The statement added that, Adebutu’s ‘decision was unbecoming of someone like Adebutu, who ought to stand by his word to support whoever won the case he took to the court’, he said.

Shortly after, another rebuttal, through another public statement surfaced on social media on the decision of some PDP leaders in Ogun State to dissociate themselves from  Ladi Adebutu’s endorsement of APM and its governorship candidate in the State.

At an expanded meeting of the PDP leadership at Legacy House, Onikolobo, secretariat of PDP faction, loyal to Adebutu, leaders of the faction kicked against the move by Adebutu by staging a walk out of the meeting.

Some of the leaders, according to the public statement, confessed that, ‘Ladi Adebutu is not the kind of leader the party envisaged and cannot give directives on their political fortune, maintaining that the planned support for Amosun’s APM is only for Adebutu’s personal agenda and cannot be in the collective interest of the entire group’.

One of the visibly angry leaders was said to have angrily said, ‘We don’t know what Ladi Adebutu take us for. We are not his boys that he can just reel out directives as he pleases because, he got us to where we are in the political equation of Ogun State today’.

He added that, ‘Adebutu destroyed the political career of many young men and women for his selfish personal benefits and he cannot be allowed to take us through another political misadventure because of his own selfish interest, he submitted’.

The last straw that broke the camel’s back was a statement issued by the Hon Ladi Adebutu’s father, Sir Keshington Adebutu who formally dissociated himself from his son’s endorsement of Amosun’s candidate, stating that Ladi was on his own.

‘I wasn’t privy to his (younger Adebutu) meeting with Governor Amosun, neither did he inform me. I heard the news like every other individual and wondered what could have gotten over him. He is on his own on this move and does not have my support’, Pa Adebutu said.

Pa Adebutu who is the Baba Oba of Remo Land and is currently abroad on medical trip said he had to release a formal statement to dissociate himself from his son’s decision due to series of calls he has been receiving over the development.

As it is, what the APM party and its candidates have been celebrating may just be an empty endorsement from Ladi Adebutu as most of his foot soldiers seem to have turned their backs against him at this crucial time.

Meanwhile, key Remo division stakeholders have also vowed not to consider party interest but will vote overwhelmingly for Prince Dapo Abiodun of the PAC on Saturday as they see his emergence as answered prayers to correct the marginalization of the zone, in terms of development project and political appointments by the Amosun administration.

Sir Keshington Adebutu (R) and Son, Hon Ladi Adebutu