- Adebutu: “Abiodun Is Using DSS, Police To Go After Me Because I Exposed Him For Stealing LG Funds”
- Abiodun : “That is A Lie, You are Only Ranting like a Drowning Man.”
By Abiola Olawale
Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State and the 2023 governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) in Ogun State, Oladipupo Adebutu are currently engaged in a fierce battle of words of alleged harassment and purported inappropriate use of security personnel.
The fight broke out when Adebutu alleged that his recent ordeal with the Department of State Services (DSS) was because the Governor sent them to hunt him down or go after him.
It would be recalled that Adebutu was arrested by officers of the Ogun state command of the DSS in Abeokuta, the state capital on Monday.
Reports suggested that Adebutu was arrested and questioned over an alleged connection with a disturbance during the recent local government elections held last Saturday.
Adebutu, in his reaction, said he was arrested because he exposed “alleged stealing of local government funds by the present administration in Ogun State.”
He also called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to call Abiodun to order, saying that the governor’s conduct in the last week poses a threat to the nation’s democracy.
According to him, the state government under Abiodun has allegedly mismanaged at least N214 billion meant for the development of the 20 local government areas in the last five years.
He said: “President Bola Tinubu should call Governor Abiodun to order because the way the governor has conducted himself in the last week, particularly over the LG poll is quite condemnable.
“If under a Yoruba presidency, the President will sit down and watch his people being killed and maimed because they want to exercise their franchise and vote the candidates of their choice, it will be very sad. The truth is that the governor is destroying whatever goodwill is left of the APC in the Southwest.
“The reason they have been pursuing me and want to shut me up is because they are stealing the local government money. They don’t want the stealing of our patrimony to stop.”
However, the state government responded to Adebutu’s allegations by labelling them as nothing more than “the rantings of a drowning man.”
In a statement, Kayode Akinmade, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Media and Strategy, Abiodun expressed the view that he was not at all surprised by the behaviour being displayed by the PDP chieftain, suggesting that such antics were expected given the circumstances.
The statement stated: “We do not find it shocking that a man who aspired to govern Ogun State but was roundly rejected by voters would claim that a governor who is not a signatory to local government accounts squandered council funds amounting to N214bn in five years.
“That means, conceptually, that the said local governments did not pay any salaries and did not execute any projects in those five years, and it says a lot about a governorship candidate whose own running mate described him as a complete disaster.
“The fact is that at no time did Governor Abiodun touch a dime of LG funds in Ogun State, but Adebutu has to entertain his crowd.”
