The Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Aeroland, a travel service provider, Otunba Segun Adewale, has refused to let his issues with the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) affect his political dream and is going ahead to revive his political career to give another shot to the race for Lagos West Senatorial District on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Earlier in the year, there were reports that AMCON had taken over Adewale’s assets at Aeroland Travels Limited and its directors over indebtedness of N1.8 billion. Some of his properties seized included 11 buildings scattered around the Lagos metropolis and the freezing of the bank accounts and shares of the company’s directors, including his own bank account and that of his wife. Adewale refuted claims of indebtedness to Polaris Bank. He claimed that the bank had refused to grant him access to the sum of N1.77bn in his account, shortly after the 2015 Lagos West Senatorial Election.
He claimed that he took the bank to court in 2018 over his seized money and that neither the officials of the bank nor its lawyers appeared in court, only for them to accuse him of owing them and got an ex parte order to seal his property.
However, this is the least of Adewale’s headaches as he has his eyes set on winning a senatorial seat in 2023. This won’t be Adewale, an indigene of Ekiti State’s first rodeo on the political terrain.
He cut his political teeth in 2015 when he slugged it out with the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, outgoing Senator Solomon Adeola, an Ogun State indigene. Theirs was a bloody campaign as supporters of both candidates resorted to violence to show their supremacy.
At the polls, Adeola beat Adewale but the latter refused to accept the results insisting that the election was anything but fair. He challenged the declaration of Adeola by the Independent National Electoral Commission as the winner. He had in his petition prayed the tribunal to nullify the declaration of Adeola as winner of the election. But Adeola had the upper hand and the tribunal upheld his declaration.
In 2018 ahead of the general election in 2019, Adewale switched camps to Action Democratic Party (ADP) to vie for the number one seat in Ekiti State. He emerged as the party’s candidate but didn’t go far in the polls. Now ahead of the 2023 general elections, he is back to PDP, offering once again, to provide the senatorial district of Lagos West, better representation in the National Assembly. His reason to return to the PDP for a senatorial seat instead of waiting to give Ekiti State government house a second shot, may not be unconnected to the fact that his greatest competition, Adeola has decided to switch his Lagos seat in the national assembly after two terms to that of Ogun State despite the fact that he is allegedly from Ekiti State. But whether Adewale’s victory at the polls is assured this time around, is a matter for another day.
