I first met Otunba Gbenga Daniel sometime in 2002 as an aspirant to the Oke ‘Mosan Government House, Abeokuta, Ogun State. I was a journalist with Nigeria’s longest surviving privately owned newspaper, Nigerian Tribune and he had visited the stable in Ibadan on a familiarisation visit. I was one of those assigned to interview Gbenga Daniel. Save for his reputation as a money bag who ran the Gateway Front Foundation which was a charity organisation of sort, and an audacious ambition to unseat the more popular then-incumbent Governor Olusegun Osoba who surefootedly gunned for a second term, very little was then known about Gbenga Daniel.
Not a few considered him too big for his shoes to have conceived the idea of beating a war horse on the political battlefield. I was one of those sceptics.
But as Gbenga Daniel sat calmly that day fielding question upon question, even demeaning ones, with stoic temperance, the only word that kept ringing in my head was ‘serendipity’. He was simply a pleasant revelation behind that timid countenance of his. His deep knowledge of his jurisdiction of interest and his giant passion and commitment to the good of the people of the state were unmistakable.
The election came and went and of course, history was written as Gbenga Daniel ended up trouncing Osoba in an epic political tsunami that swept away the Alliance for Democracy in the West and installed a new crop of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governors who have since grown to become veritable power blocs in their own rights.
A hundred days after Gbenga Daniel was sworn in, I was a member of a team of journalists including Dr Reuben Abati and late Yinka Craig who conducted an assessment questions and answers session on live television for him on the state-owned Ogun State Television (OGTV). Though some of the questions then pointedly sought to benchmark him as a neophyte against his predecessor, Daniel never for once lost his cool. That studied squeaky clean mien about him was simply unwavering!
A few months down the line, a couple of journalists were invited to his Kresta Laurel for an evening of jaw with the governor. Though I had in 2004 left active journalism to join the Public Relations team of a telecommunications company which had just begun operations in Nigeria, I made the list. In between drinks and food coupled with light-hearted music, everyone bared their minds about the perception of the people of the state and Nigerians, by extension, on Daniel’s style of governance. Though one or two comments came across to me as unkind cuts, the man still maintained his cool and related with everyone as though they were members of his kitchen cabinet.
I was to meet Gbenga Daniel again as a member of the Oye Ibidapo Obe Visitation Panel to the Olabisi Onabanjo University in 2010. Although the panel was inaugurated solely by him, I cannot recall a single incident of meddlesomeness on his part on the decisions of the panel throughout its four-month sessions then held in Ijebu Ode. That reinforced the thought espoused by former American President Theodore Roosevelt that “the best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.” The assignment was successfully carried out and report handed over to him.
Lastly, sometime in 2015, I learnt from common interests that the man Daniel had fallen out with one of his then lieutenants who is an older friend of mine from my university days. I picked up my phone and called him to discuss the matter with him. Though I am years younger, Daniel listened to me attentively as I tried to make peace between the two of them, stating his own side as if I needed to be schooled for purposes of propriety! I mean, he had no business entertaining my call or explaining anything to me, he could just have brashly put me in my place and I would, of course have upbraided myself for earning it but, not Daniel. That made him to earn my respect the more.
Coming nearer home to 2017, the PDP, his darling party is shopping for a National Chairman to midwife its redemption from the devils that had ravaged it as a result of so many issues which I lack the competencies to analyse. I perceive Otunba Daniel as a leader who is well able to deploy his humility, wisdom and creative capabilities to innovate veritable change in response to shifting demands in governance and leadership for the advancement of common good especially in a nation of escalating complexities as ours.
And as a resultant effect of these rising demands for leadership skills occasioned by the palpable leadership gaps in the affairs of the nation, I wish the PDP would look beyond mundane issues to install Gbenga Daniel who evidently possesses the flexibility to mitigate the generational differences between Generation Y of his party and the geriatrics towards harnessing the best of both values from both ends and deploying same to the management of what was arguably the largest party in Africa second only to the South African National Congress(ANC), ultimately setting the country on the path of future political equilibrium.
With the array of contestants vying for the enviable post, the odds seem to be stacked against Gbenga Daniel. One of the fortes of OGD is the ability to perform maximally when the competition is stiff. I have no doubt in my mind that this strategist would ride the crest of the formidable opposition to victory. These times call for a humble and strategic fighter to weld the smithereens of PDP together with tact in order to wrest power in 2019.
Times like these call for a tested politician who is not a rabble-rouser but a mobiliser with the prodigious clout to deliver the good. Otunba Gbenga Daniel is a progressive politician in the conservative party and has what it takes to restore the party to status quo ante with internal democracy, equity, love and sacrifice.
A word is enough for the wise, ahead of the December 9 PDP convention which incidentally is the day I will strike Gold, members should shine their eyes well by giving OGD the ticket to repair and restore the party.
Asenuga, a Public Relations practitioner, writes from Lagos.
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