Group backs Obasanjo on call for Yewa to produce next Ogun gov

A group, Yewa Connecting Minds (YCM) has welcome former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s public expression of support and endorsement of Ogun West ‎extraction to be next governor of Ogun State come 2019.

Obasanjo, while speaking in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital when the leadership of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in the state visited him, said Ogun West Senatorial District should be given the slot to produce the next governor of the state come 2019, in the interest of justice and fairness.

According to him, if Ijebu and Egba have produced the governor of Ogun State at one time or another, it is only fair and just to allow the Yewa or Ogun West to also have their turn come next general election, “else, one day, they will also stand up and take up arms against this injustice against them, that is my personally position on this.”

Coordinator of YCM, an umbrella body of groups that comprise both youths and elders in liberation movements in Yewaland, Prince Ekunola Gbenga Abraham, gave this support in a statement made available at the weekend.

He said the YCM was satisfied with the endorsement by Obasanjo on the issue of governorship in the state, including that of zoning of the seat to Ogun West district of the state, lamenting that Ogun West was the most marginalised of the four sections in the political arrangement and calculations in the state.

Gbenga further lamented that, “Over 40 years after the creation of the state, the district comprising the Yewa/Awori people remains the only section that has yet to produce the governor.

“Their counterparts–the Ijebu, the Egba and the Remo have within this period had their fair share. The Ijebu and Egba have had their turn in the late Chief Bisi Onabanjo in the Second Republic and Chief Olusegun Osoba, who at two different periods, during the regime of military president, General Ibrahim Babangida and between 1999 and 2003, occupied the office.

“The Remo had their turn with the eight-year two-term tenure of the immediate past Governor Gbenga Daniel. The Egba are currently having another turn with the re-election of Governor Ibikunle Amosun.

“The closest the Yewa/Awori has ever got was Alhaja Salimot Badru as deputy governor in the administration of Daniel. Since then, all attempts by Ogun West to have one of its own as the governor have so far resulted in political miscalculations and loss occasioned by intrigues and betrayal by certain elements from the area.”

Ekunola also commended Governor Ibikunle Amosun and others, who he said were strongly in support of Ogun West agitation for governor of the state ahead of 2019 governorship poll.

YCM coordinator, however, implored other elder statesmen to take similar steps in supporting the call for a competent Ogun governor of Ogun West extraction, come 2019.