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Tag: Ibikunle Amosun

  • 2019: I’m still in APC, Amosun declares

    Gov. Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun says he will remain in the All Progressives Congress (APC) to contest the senatorial election in 2019 while ensuring the re-election of President Muhammadu Buhari.

    He, however, said aggrieved party members who defected to the Allied People’s Movement (APM) have his blessings.

    Amosun spoke on Monday in Abeokuta at a stakeholders meeting of the APC which was attended by his preferred governorship candidate and the flagbearer of APM, Adekunle Akinlade.

    The governor ’s declaration came as 26 aggrieved candidates of the APC loyal to the governor announced their defection to the APM.

    Amosun said he had tried his best to stop the defection of Akinlade and other aggrieved candidates.

    He vowed to use everything within his capacity to ensure the success of Akinlade and other aggrieved members in their new party.

    Amosun also said that he would not support the governorship candidate of the APC, Dapo Abiodun.

    “When these people came, they told me they are leaving the APC, I said ‘no’ but I couldn’t stop them. In fact, Akinlade has my full support.

    ” I am not going to stop him, everything I have, I will use to support him, let them try whatever they want to try, we also have our strategies and I am not going to hide behind one finger.

    “I remain in APC because that’s what those people want, they want us to leave APC but they are joking.

    “ I will stay in APC to ensure that Buhari wins in Ogun State and to let them know that they can’t subvert the will of the state.

    “Every day, I will campaign for President Muhammdu Buhari, we will do everything possible to ensure Buhari wins massively in Ogun, but they should not miss it.

    “I, Sen. Ibikunle Amosun, will not support anyone they are bringing,” he said.

    Amosun, who vowed to resist rigging in the state, also pledged to check violence in the electoral process.

  • I have no hand in Oshiomhole’s ordeal – Amosun

    Gov. Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State has dismissed rumours that he and Gov. Rochas Okorocha of Imo are behind the alleged detention and grilling of All Progressives Congress(APC) National Chairman Adams Oshiomhole.

    Oshiomhole was reportedly detained and questioned on Nov. 4 by the Department of State Services (DSS) over the fallout of the APC primaries.

    Speaking with State House correspondents after a closed-door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday at the Presidential Villa, Amosun said he did not have such capacity.

    “I think you are giving me an oversight role.

    “I am not a security person; so, clearly, that question will probably not be for me.

    “I don’t hide under a finger and fight; if there is need for me to put my views across, you know by now, I will do it.”

    The governor, who sounded evasive, said that all that needed to be said about the APC crisis had been said; hence no need to sound like `a broken gammaphone’.

    He said it was not true that he was having problem with the leadership of the party.

    It would be realled that three APC governors — Okorocha, Amosun and Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara have been at loggerheads with Oshiomhole over the outcome of the party’s primaries.

    NAN

  • Amosun dismisses alleged defection from APC after meeting Buhari

    Gov. Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun has dismissed as mischief the insinuation that he had defected from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) or planning to dump the party over political developments in the state.
    Amosun stated this when he fielded questions from State House correspondent of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) after a closed door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Sunday.
    Prior to Sunday’s meeting with the president, Amosun had visited the presidential villa for over four times within the past three weeks where he met separately with the president and the vice-president Yemi Osinbajo.
    The APC National Working Committee is believed to have forwarded the name of Prince Dapo Abiola to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as the party’s governorship candidate in the 2019 general elections.
    Abiola was declared winner of the Ogun State APC governorship primary by the APC NWC panel sent to conduct the primary in the state.
    This declaration was against Gov. Amosun’s preferred candidate, Adekunle Akinlade, who was elected as the governorship candidate of the party in another primary conducted by the state’s APC officials.
    Amosun had allegedly accused some political interest group of `misinforming’ President Buhari about `political equation’ in Ogun.
    But, the governor pledged his political loyalty to the president and vowed to support his political ambition in 2019, saying, however, he would hand over the mantle of leadership to his preferred candidate, Adekunle Akinlade, in 2019.
    Amosun, who was accompanied on Sunday’s visit to the presidential villa by the Alake of Egbaland Oba Adedotun Gbadebo III and a former Minister, Senator Iyabo Anisulowo, renewed his allegiance to the APC.
    He said: “We will stalk with (President Buhari) him. So, I want them to know that we are not going anywhere.
    “I’m going to be with the APC, we are in the APC and even after his second term, which by the grace of God and the support of all Nigerians he will win.’’
    Oba Gbadebo, who also spoke after the meeting, said his visit to President Buhari, whom he described as his boss in the army, was a routine one.
    Anisulowo, onetime minister of state for education, said the people of Ogun would vote massively for President Buhari and all APC candidates in 2019.
    “Ogun is very peaceful and is a very progressive state. Ogun is Baba Buhari’s state and we cannot allow anything to happen contrary to our wishes for him for his second term in office,’’ she said.
     

  • Breaking: Again, Gov. Amosun meets Buhari

    Breaking: Again, Gov. Amosun meets Buhari

    Gov. Ibikunle Amosun on Tuesday visited the Presidential Villa, Abuja, where he met behind closed door with President Muhammadu Buhari for about two hours.
    Amosun had on Thursday met separately with President Buhari and Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo over political developments in his state.
    Though agenda of today’s meeting between President Buhari and the governor was not made public, the Governor may update the president on political happenings that trailed the conduct of All Progressives Congress primaries in Ogun.
    The APC National Working Committee panel sent to Ogun State for the conduct of the governorship primary had on Wednesday night declared Prince Dapo Abiodun as the party’s governorship candidate in the 2019 general elections.
    This declaration came some hours after the state chapter of the APC also declared the Gov. Amosun’s preferred candidate, Adekunle Akinlade, as the governorship candidate of the party.
    The governor had at the weekend allegedly accused some political interest group of `misinforming’ President Buhari about `political equation’ in Ogun.
    Amosun, who made the accusation on a national television during the live coverage of the APC senatorial primary in the state, vowed that his preferred candidate for the governorship seat, Akinlade, would emerge victorious at the end of the political dispute.
    The outcome of the closed door meeting was still being awaited as of the time of filling this report.
     

  • South West Governors formally admit Lagos into O’dua Investment Group

    The six Governors of south west region under the auspices of the Western Nigerian Governors Forum on Wednesdayformally admitted Lagos State into the O’dua Investment Group with a total of 115million shares thus growing the share equity of the company to 690million.

    The Governors – Akinwunmi Ambode (Lagos), Rauf Aregbesola (Osun), Abiola Ajimobi (Oyo), Rotimi Akeredolu (Ondo) and Ibikunle Amosun (Ogun), in a communiqué issued at the end of a two-day quarterly meeting held at Lagos House in Alausa, Ikeja, also ratified a document allowing Lagos to acquire land in their respective states for massive rice cultivation and production.

    Specifically, all the Governors resolved to embark on a Rice Accelerated Program for Integrated Development (Western RAPID) to further consolidate actions on food security and job creation in the region, while a Regional Agriculture Summit to be sponsored by Lagos State, was agreed to be held in Ibadan in May 2018.

    The forum, which is being coordinated through the Development Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN) Commission, also signified interest in the concession of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport.

    Reading the communiqué to journalists, Director General of DAWN Commission, Mr Oluseye Oyeleye said: “The States of the Region as a bloc will be monitoring the process for the Murtala Muhammed International Airport Concession into a world class infrastructure.”

    He said the Governors also resolved that DAWN Commission, Focal Representatives and Agriculture Commissioners of the region would hold a technical session with Nigeria Incentive-based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) and develop a state by state roadmap in four weeks before the Regional Agriculture Summit scheduled for May 2018.

    It was also agreed that DAWN Commission should work on reviving Regional Inter-School Football Competition, and as well conduct a study on the successes in Education in Ekiti State for peer learning/adoption among the Western Nigeria states.

    Also, the Governors directed the DAWN Commission and the Focal representatives to structure a programme on the Omoluabi Ethos of the Yoruba people.

    However, Ogun State Deputy Governor, Mrs Yetunde Onanuga, who represented Governor Amosu, raised some reservations about the land deal, saying that the State Government on account of previous issues with Lagos on the similar subject matter would be refraining from releasing land to the State until the said issues were resolved.

    Nonetheless, Onanuga said: “We will be prepared to sign this memorandum later when some of these issues are straightened out.”

    When asked by journalists on way out of the issues raised by Ogun State, Governor Ambode said he was optimistic that all the States would join in the effort to ensure food security and create jobs for the people.

    He said: “What has happened is that we wanted to expand the agric output of our rice mill and in doing so, we decided that all the south west States should be able to cultivate rice and supply paddy to the proposed rice mill that is coming up in Imota in Lagos.

    “So, what we have done is that four other States have agreed to sign the Memorandum of Understanding which they have actually done today and so what is happening between Lagos and Ogun is that there were some minor issues that were outstanding before and based on that they could not sign today but you could also hear that they are committed to signing when those issues are resolved.

    “We are having a 32-ton per hour rice mill in Imota and we are going to require 32,000 hectares of paddy cultivation which even the whole of the south west cannot even provide but because we are interested in integration and also independence, it is important that beyond going to Kebbi or Kano, all the south western states should also benefit from it and the idea is that we are trying to procure land there but we will also use the people and the farmers in the respective states to cultivate the land and by so doing we have created employment in those States and we will be off-takers to the paddies that they are producing and so I am able to buy it and also use it for my own rice mill and then sell it in Lagos and so I create employment across the region and at the same time put money into the pocket of our people,” Governor Ambode said.

    Earlier, Governor Aregbesola described the incorporation of Lagos State into the economic framework of the south west region as historic and long coming since 1948, adding that the development would strengthen the O’dua Investment Group and drive the development of the region.

     

  • In photos: Atiku, Amosun others celebrate ex-CJN, Belgore at 80

    Former Vice-President and chieftain of the APC, Atiku Abubakar was at a book launch for the celebration of 80th birthday anniversary of CJN Alfa Belgore (rtd) at the Yar’Adua Center in Abuja onTuesday.

    Also at the event were, Ogun State governor, Ibikunle Amosun, author of the book, Mr. Adedunmade Onibokun, former Head of State, Gen Abdulsalam Abubakar and others.