A pressure group, Yewa Connecting Minds (YCM), has implored all stakeholders in Ogun State to support the aspiration of an indigene of Ogun West District to succeed the incumbent Governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun.
YCM in a statement on Friday, signed by its coordinator, Prince Gbenga Ekunola, said the group was satisfied with the endorsement by the former President Olusegun Obasanjo on the issue of governorship in the state, including that of zoning of the seat to Ogun West district of the State.
Ekunola recalled that Chief Obasanjo while speaking recently in Abeokuta when the leadership of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) Ogun State visited him had declared that in the interest of justice and fairness, Ogun west senatorial district in Ogun state should be given the slot to produce the next governor of the state.
He claimed that Ogun West was the most marginalized of the four sections in the political arrangement and calculations, because over 40 years after the creation of the state, the district, comprising the Yewa/Awori people, remained the only section that had yet to produce the governor.
He said their counterparts–the Ijebu, the Egba and the Remo “had 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.”
According to him, “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 while commending Amosun and others stakeholders who are strongly in support of Ogun West ahead of 2019 governorship elections, implored other elder statesmen to take similar steps in supporting the call for a competent Ogun Governor of Ogun West extraction.
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