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2019 General Election: Adeosun’s resignation unsettles Amosun’s political camp in Ogun

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…questions imposition of candidates through consensus nomination option
 
The resignation of the minister of finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, from the cabinet of President Muhammadu Buhari, has unsettled the political camp of the Ogun state governor, Ibikunle Amosun.

The camp is smarting from the shameful development that took the nation by storm on Friday. 

Adeosun’s resignation came about two months after it was reported in the media that she forged her National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, exemption certificate.

Her decision to throw in the towel was sequel to the outcome of the presidential investigation into the matter to which she claimed she was privy.  

She was Governor Amosun’s nominee into the federal cabinet in 2015, after having served in the Ogun state cabinet as commissioner for finance from 2011 to 2015.

The implication of her commissionership is that she compromised the system in Ogun state and escaped indictment.

The speculation doing the rounds in Ogun state was that Governor Amosun failed to do due diligence before appointing her as commissioner.

Security reports that were conditions precedents to appointment into public office could not have failed to raise a red flag on the fact that the exemption certificate she presented was fake.

The Ogun state administration under Amosun, according to watchers of the development, either aided and abetted the felony by giving her protection or was altogether taken in by the seeming naiveté of Adeosun.  

Analysts contend that the fall of Adeosun has far-reaching implications for Amosun’s administration and political judgments.

Some political quarters in Ogun state were said to have, in 2015, questioned Amosun’s nomination of Adeosun as minister despite having served as finance commissioner in the state.

One of the reasons was the uncertainty that shrouded her claim that she was exempted from the NYSC and the other reason was her doubtful capacity to represent Ogun state very well.

A top politician in the state told Per Second News that the primary concern at the time was the “inexperience” of Adeosun to survive the usually tumultuous public office at the federal level and the nation’s larger “cloak-and-dagger politics”.

Expectedly, she had landed herself in trouble from the outset, according to a grapevine who hinted that the Department of State Services, DSS, saw through her claim and indexed it in accordance in its report to Senate prelude to confirmation hearing.

But the Senate leadership, in a somewhat desperate bid to worm itself into the heart of the presidency, decided not to raise a lot of issues with the ministerial nominees who were presented to the Senate for screening and confirmation six months after the inauguration of the administration.

It was learnt that no sooner was Adeosun confirmed and assigned the portfolio of finance ministry than the senators who were privy to the security report that raised the red flag on her NYSC exemption certificate began to apply subtle blackmail on her.

The situation reportedly got to a head when as minister of finance she was said to have sidestepped the directive of the vice president and chairman of the National Economic Council, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, that the subhead on the constituency projects and some others should not be funded.

But because the senators were using the forged exemption certificate as a blackmail chip against her, she reportedly funded the said budget items worth billions of naira.

Sources close to the development said it was apparent that Adeosun could not continue to live in self denial and that typical of blackmailers, those blackmailing her in the senate would, one day, expose her to national embarrassment and ridicule. 

That happened two months ago via the publication in an online news platform.

Adeosun’s fall is rubbing off negatively on Governor Amosun’s administration and political decisions that have put the All Progressives Congress, APC, under intense pressure and tension ahead of the 2019 general election.

The nomination of candidates, according to sundry reports, had been hijacked and manipulated by Amosun who had already foisted a list of consensus candidates on the party in the state from the position of governor through senators down to state legislators.

There is a growing resentment in the APC in the state.  Some aspirants have kicked and are insisting that the nomination of candidates for all positions should be subjected to direct primaries in accordance with the directive of the national leadership of the party.

Indeed, politicians of various persuasions and leanings in the state chapter of the APC are ill at ease with Amosun’s desperate and anti-democratic leadership style and have asked if he really loves Ogun state and the APC as his plot could boomerang against the party in the general election.

The consensus of opinions, as learnt, is that Amosun is more interested in his selfish political agenda. 

Already, he has produced himself as the consensus senatorial candidate for Ogun Central senatorial district.

He has rallied the government structure behind Honourable Abdulkadir Adekunle Akinlade as governorship candidate of the party for the 2019 election.

There are concerns in political circles in APC that Amosun, just as he failed to do due diligence in the case of Adeosun, has either failed to do due diligence in the case of Akinlade or has decided to install him knowing that he is a flawed and compromised candidate whom he can blackmail even in government.

Leaders of the APC in Ogun state are vehemently kicking against the choice of Akinlade whom Amosun removed from office as his Special Assistant on Internally Generated Revenue, IGR, due to some wrongdoings.

Some leaders were said to have intervened for him consequent upon which Amosun deployed him to ministry of women affairs and thereafter allowed him to contest for the Egbado South and Ipokia Federal Constituency seat in the House of Representatives.

Some quarters in the Ogun APC are shocked that Amosun has decided to endorse the same man (Akinlade) as his successor, thus raising serious concerns about his political judgment and decision at this time when his decision on Adeosun has already blown up in his face and has embarrassed the entire Ogun state.

 

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