I’m Not Going Back On My Petition Against Governor Dapo Abiodun – Wale Adedayo

The suspended Chairman of Ijebu East Local Government Area of the state, Mr. Wale Adedayo has come out to say that he remains unshaken in his demand that Ogun State Governor, Dapo Abiodun should allow the local governments in the state have access to federal allocations meant to develop the grassroots.

He recently had his say while speaking to the press, and Nigerians have been reacting.

According to him, he has no regrets about the actions he has so far taken despite his arrest and detention for three days, and he intends to keep fighting for the just cause.

Wale added that he has told the DSS that he would never write a retraction of his statement that there has been zero allocation to the local governments in the state.

His words, “Claimed there is a letter from the governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun, that I was making inciting comments against the state government but I told them that there was nothing like that or who did they say I have incited? They said that I was planning a protest but I said I don’t know anything about that and I told them that I had only done what my conscience said that I should and this I did with my other colleagues and chairmen even though they all ran back. My conscience is very clear in the letter I wrote to Chief Olusegun Osoba, the former governor of the state and a national leader of our party, APC.

Some of the chairmen had input into the letter, I only did the editing of the letter, put my name there, and then sent it and what is written in the letter affects all the council chairmen, so it is not about getting their backing or not. So what the governor wanted me to do was to do a retraction of what the letter contained but I said that I won’t do that. The DSS later said the governor said that I have embarrassed him and I said if the governor felt that I have embarrassed him, I am sorry but the truth is that the facts are there for “I am not fighting with Governor Abiodun, he is my friend, he’s my egbon, my senior brother but my take is if the local governments are doing well, it’s all to the credit of Mr Governor.

He is the one people will be talking about and I gave them the example of the government of Otunba Gbenga Daniel between 2003 to 2011. If you go to the 236 wards in the state you will see the footprints of this government at the grassroots, the people will be saying Daniel did this, he did that but it was the local government chairmen that did all of these projects yet people till today will be shouting the name of Gbenga Daniel. All of these were made possible because the governor allowed the local governments to have access to their federal allocations.

“So, I said the same thing will be happening if Governor Abiodun allows the local governments to have access to their funds. And then they came up with the issue of being sponsored, I am 57 and I know what is good for the people, no one is sponsoring me and they said that I should apologise and do a retraction but I said no. I said if the governor said that he was embarrassed I am sorry but I equally added that if the governor had funded the local governments all would have been to his credit, I wrote all of this for the DSS.”