By Lanre Adewole
“In various ways, we might not have our way but we just have to work together because I know if it was left to me, I know where we will take governorship to, but it’s about consensus and I have to agree with everybody to say this is where we need to go”.
That was the embattled outgoing Kwara Governor and Chairman of Governors’ Forum, Abdulraham Abdulrazaq, days back, literally mourning the reality he would not be able to foist a successor or even his party’s gubernatorial flagbearer on the rest of the state. He had an anointed. He anointed him. But he quickly realised the aura enveloping his anointing wouldn’t be enough to ascend the chosen to the throne. The man saw the “Mene Mene” handwriting on the wall and quickly backtracked. Now he says he would play by the popular will in his party though distressing news is still a daily staple from the state chapter of the ruling party. It would appear the outgoing governor who wants to retire to the senate (documentary evidence showed he purchased two senatorial forms for Kwara Central seat which should ordinarily disqualify him according to the Electoral Act but judiciary has a way of protecting his kind), isn’t stringing fealty to his teamwork rhetoric. Due process advocates tugging with him are also unrelenting.
Kwara APC is fast resembling the kaka keku ma je sese (scattering everything to make it useful to no one) adage. Going by the insider details I have, it seems the roof would end up coming down on everyone, including Mr. President, who appears timid about his choice in the state unlike places like Lagos, Oyo, Ogun et al, where he “spoke” loud and clear. If you have used the membership proviso in the Electoral Act (by delaying the candidate “coronation” exercise till the expiration of the deadline to lawfully switch platforms) to tether aspirants who feel cheated back in the party, you may be trying to domesticate wild emotions.
There would be no taming their fury when the despised eventually have the chance of hurting you and the party badly in the general election. When you hear a leader collected mobilization money for the general election and isn’t seen anywhere near the polling booth or he completely disappears from the neighborhood, it’s called payback time. My Ijesa people will say, the child of the deceased will dance as far as his bean cake sharing (ubi omo looku ba pin’kara de la jo de). The Yoruba will say bi ku ile o pani tode ole paniyan (enemies within are more brutal and lethal).
It’s a similar scenario in Kwara’s boundary buddy; Osun, with a bent and a blueprint.
In fact, I learnt Governor Abdulrasaq is seriously eyeing the Osun APC nomination style of coercion first (by questionably disqualify the rest of the field for the anointed) to weed out the unwanted, and then an armistice, to pacify the disgruntled.
It worked, albeit acrimoniously, on December 13, 2025 to produce Bola Oyebamiji as the “consensus” candidate of the party for the August 15, 2026 outlier gubernatorial poll against incumbent PDP/Accord candidate, Jackson Adeleke. It may not work in the dishing out of the national and state assemblies tickets, though the leadership of the party in the state under Gboyega Oyetola, the marine minister, is hell-bent on another fait accompli “consensus/affirmation” journey, beginning from the weekend’s coronation of crown prince-defectors from the dismantled and mangled opposition; Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), known as the G5. Well, it is a truism that anyone will stick to what works; even a thief, to result-oriented methodologies. In a situation like this, the Yoruba adage about prawn thief and multiple thieveries will come in handy.
But a sensible fellow would want to toe more of the path of not dusting crumbs sticking to the palms and fingers back into the porcelain from which white moinmoin (Yoruba delicacy known as ekuru) is eaten from. Of what use is forcing through a process that won’t ultimately deliver a desired end, except one is a megalomaniac, which in this case is just to be seen to be in control of the state chapter of the party. That would be a sad way to lead.
The Yoruba will encourage more friends and less of enemies in the situation Osun APC has found itself after the chaotic gubernatorial nomination. I encourage this too because I have an idea what the inside looks like. If the party goes into the August poll this divided, it would be a crippling shellacking.
A straw poll commissioned and sponsored by the backbone of the party (redacting identity for a purpose but if the numbers are contested, I will reveal the sponsor) returned a stunning and damning rebuke from the people. It was 83% (victory probability) Adeleke to 17% Oyebamiji of APC! I know this because I have been carried along.
To Abuja, the August poll is a no-hopper for APC. But you hardly want to count a nine-toe feet in the presence of the owner!
With scandalous defeat starring the party, Oyetola, in fairness, initiated a peace/power sharing deal, only that it seemed fidelity isn’t his thing. How do you agree a power sharing deal in the presence of the patriarch of the party, then instigate the notorious G5 to touch base with a highly-flammable torch, even before ink would dry on the Abuja Accord. And it was so convenient that four of the ticket-seeking quintet are from one senatorial district! Hopefully, the president won’t be asking Baba Akande to initiate another Adewole Commission of Inquiry when APC is soundly defeated again like it was in 2018 and 2022.
There is no disputation that doing same thing same way, is pure, applied madness. But pray, what message is the President actually sending to faithful APC members who stayed the course all the years in opposition, painfully rebuilding the ruins left behind by his two anointed “boys” from Lagos, as governors, only for him to allegedly endorse PDP rejects (decampees) as APC sweethearts for NASS tickets. How do you commit the despised to another cycle of running the drenching rain and scorching sun, campaigning for a party which places practically no value on them?. Since you Tarka them now, expect them to Daboh you in August and 2027.
But the President may not have much to lose. All indices have shown he is for Adeleke and the governor is for him. Well, two has evenly divided four, as they analyse “gege se gege” (how do I interpret this now?). Maybe “peki ko peki” will do. (Smiles).
Let those who have the heart for wisdom, learn. Proverbs 9:9 says “teach a wise man wisdom, he will be wise still”.
When President Tinubu’s lickspittles in the leadership of the federal legislature, with the ruling party in absolute majority, were busy tweaking the electoral rule to obviously disadvantage the opposition and give their party a haven ahead 2027, they certainly never reasoned that this season might come when the falcons will no longer harken to the falconers’ piping. By limiting nomination choices to direct and consensus, APC leaders, acting on the instruction of the President, with the turn of events now, definitely had candidate coronation, labelled as consensus, in mind. Of course, it has always been the preferred way of the President from his days as a dominant godfather, though he successfully fought against it when the Buhari gang was going to use it to edge both him and Southern Nigeria out of APC presidential ticket for the 2023 election which he went on to win. Why now abridging others’ political destinies?
Even when Buhari as president openly demanded the consensus option for him to single-handedly anoint a likely successor which wasn’t going to be today’s president, Tinubu fought his predecessor’s agenda all the way and succeeded.
While it is not wrong for the rest to queue behind the most popular aspirant, forcing the rest to toe predetermined paths they don’t want, will continue to breed internal enemies, especially now that the deadline for party membership switch, has expired.
If you ask those in the built sector, they will tell you the quickest way to take a house down to its foundation is targeting the pillars, from the inside.
Just like the rest of Nigeria is doing to the Ibos, Spain treating Catalonia and China, Taiwan, you are forcing ambition-fired, suspiciously-disqualified, unhappy aspirants to stay back in your party by ensuring candidate coronation is after party-crossing deadline. That is akin to what the Yoruba will describe as leaving a cobra on your roof and snoring. What you see, is what you get.
By the close of deadline for the process, 101 applicants had shown up for APC’s 28 gubernatorial tickets for the states where the 2027 poll will take place. That should tell the President the governors, to whom he had publicly handed the leadership of the state chapters, are not as commanding in influence as he thought.
Of the 31 governors of the party, only Babagana Zulum of Borno, succeeded with the consensus option, producing a solo aspirant for the party. Even the automatic ticket promised the second-term seekers amongst them, didn’t turn out as expected, especially for decampees like Hyacinth Alia of Benue, Caleb Muftwang of Plateau and predictably so, Siminalayi Fubara of Rivers. If any of the trio, particularly of the first two, ends up not making it, which isn’t unlikely especially the Alia fellow who is in a tug of war with his old benefactor, SGF George Akume, the temptation to say the eye has seen what it was looking for, the Yoruba way of saying “ja gin ni” (serves you right), will be irresistible.
Other defecting governors like Adamawa and Taraba’s, who are rounding off their final term also have their hands full with multiple aspirants despite having their so-called anointed, and presidential backing to coronate them. Even for “home boys” like Nasarawa and Gombe governors, tough aspirants like Isa Pantami and a former IGP have made nonsense of the governors’ endorsements, by remaining in the race, threatening fire and brimstone.
And these are the governors the president is banking on their influence to deliver him in 2027, going for them lo’ju pali (wholesale or in a record number)? How can those who can’t manage their state chapters deliver majority of the electorate to a president, especially one with very bad poll numbers? If party faithful would not trust them with the required maturity and integrity to drive a mini process, why should the larger electorate even cast a look at the presidential product they are hawking like gbogbo nise epa Ijebu (a cure-all Ijebu concoction).
