How One Man’s Ambition Mocks Ijebu, Egba and Yewa, And Why It Must Be Resisted
The most decisive fact in Ogun State today is not who shouts loudest about ancestry or who prints the most preloaded cards, but who can win Egba. Ogun Central is and remains the real kingmaker of the Gateway State. It holds the largest voting population, the highest number of registered voters, and the most politically sophisticated electorate. History is brutal on this point: no one has ever become governor of Ogun without making a deep inroad into Abeokuta and the Egba heartland. Even governors from Remo – Gbenga Daniel and Dapo Abiodun – had to win Egba to win Ogun. This is where Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola, Yayi, has a structural capability that Oladipupo Adebutu, Lado, cannot match. Yayi understands the Egba arithmetic and has played it strategically, picking Kudirat Adegunwa-Balogun, an accountant from Ijebu Central and daughter of industrialist Adebola Adegunwa, as running mate to soften Ijebu resistance while keeping the Egba door wide open. Adebutu’s counter move – picking Dr. Yemi Sowunmi-Kolapo, an Egba woman from Ijemo and Iya Sunnah of Egbaland, and celebrating the return of Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello to PDP – is itself an admission of weakness. It is a defensive apology to Egba for the insult he is about to commit.
That insult is the Iperu-to-Iperu agenda, and it mocks every other bloc in the state. For eight years, from 2019 to 2027, Ogun has been governed by a man from Iperu-Remo, Governor Dapo Abiodun. Ladi Adebutu is also from Iperu-Remo. His paternal compound is in Iperu, his family history is rooted in Iperu, his political base is Iperu. For him to now insist that after eight years of Iperu in Oke Mosan, power must remain in the same small town in Iperu for another four or eight years is not just a zoning injustice, it is political arrogance that tells the rest of Ogun that their aspirations do not matter. It mocks the Ijebu man in Ijebu-Ode, Ijebu-Igbo, Odogbolu, Ijebu Waterside and Ogun Waterside who, in the real historical sense, has not produced a governor in this Fourth Republic, that his 12-year wait for a true Ijebu son must be sacrificed for one family’s continuity. It mocks the Egba man in Abeokuta North, Abeokuta South, Obafemi-Owode, Ewekoro, Ifo and Ado-Odo/Ota who twice lent Remo the votes to produce Daniel and Abiodun, that he must now queue again behind the same Iperu gate. And it mocks, most cruelly, the Yewa man in Yewa North, Yewa South, Imeko-Afon, Ipokia and Ado-Odo/Ota who has waited since Ogun was created in 1976 – 49 years – without ever producing an elected governor, that his cry for justice is irrelevant. How can one town hold a state of over six million people hostage for twelve years? How can equity be turned into inheritance? This is the pool game being played – the profiteers shift the balls while the gullible watch the table, betting on the idiocy of voters to forget simple maths: Remo has done 16 years under Daniel and Abiodun, Egba has done 12 years under Osoba and Amosun, Yewa has done zero, authentic Ijebu has done zero in this Republic, yet Iperu says give us more. That is why this ambition is an insult that Egba, Ijebu and Yewa must resist together at the ballot, or lose the moral right to ever complain about marginalization again.
When that insult is placed beside the other issues dominating the debate, Yayi’s capability to subdue Ladi becomes even more decisive. The first is the wrong ballot question of identity versus capacity. Adebutu’s camp made blackmail its opening strategy, alleging that Yayi is not an Ogun indigene but from Ekiti State, demanding documentary proof of his roots in Ago-Isaga, Ilaro, and turning a maternal home-coming in Kemta, Abeokuta into an inquisition about a name change from Sulaiman Ogunleye to Solomon Adeola and about siblings. This reduces governance to genealogy. Bloodline does not build infrastructure, balance a budget or create jobs. Voters in Ogun say they want economic revival for Ota’s manufacturing hub, security for border communities, and jobs for youths. Yayi answers with a record that can be touched: over 250 projects across Ogun West including Bisi Popoola Street in Ayetoro, Obaladi Palace Road in Afon, Moriwi-Oke Agbede-Iwoye network, Ona Odo Road in Ilara, ultra-modern markets in Ayetoro, Iboro and Obada, 12-classroom blocks at Oke-Ore Grammar School and Ketu College, PHCs in Ebute Igboro, Ijaka Oke, Atapele, Atan and Sango Ota, police stations in Ayetoro and Idiroko, plus scholarships and ICT empowerment under his FECSTEP framework. Blackmail has no physical dividend. It generates headlines but not development.
The second is the constitutional qualification versus political sentiment. Section 177 of the 1999 Constitution lists who can be governor: citizen by birth, 35 years, party sponsorship, school certificate. It does not list indigene as a qualification. Questions of rootedness are legitimate for voters to weigh, but they are political judgments, not legal disqualifications. Adebutu leans on sentiment that Yayi built his career in Lagos – eight years in Lagos House of Assembly, four years in House of Representatives for Alimosho as Chairman Public Accounts, eight years as Senator for Lagos West, before becoming Senator for Ogun West in 2023 and Chairman Senate Committee on Appropriations. Yayi leans on law and competence. That 20-year trajectory as a chartered accountant in legislative budgeting and oversight gives him fiscal capacity that his opponent, whose legislative record is 1992 National Assembly and 2015-2019 House of Reps and whose strength is business and family philanthropy, has never demonstrated at that scale. Sentiment does not appropriate funds. Expertise does.
The third is the joker that has expired – the alleged vote-buying machine. Following a petition by APC chairman Yemi Sanusi to the IGP, investigation by SCID Abeokuta, and filing by the Federal Ministry of Justice, Charge No AB/10C/2023, FRN Vs Adebutu & 5 Ors, was brought on seven counts bordering on money laundering and vote-buying under the Electoral Act 2022 over the allegation of 200,000 preloaded Verve ATM cards of N10,000 each distributed on March 18, 2023. Adebutu pleaded not guilty, was granted N1m bail with surety in like sum, and on November 6, 2025, Justice T.A. Okunsokan dismissed his application to strike out the charge, holding that the AGF has prosecutorial power under Section 174 of the Constitution and that double jeopardy does not apply under Section 245(1) of ACJL Ogun, adjourning trial to January 29-30, 2026. Presumption of innocence remains until proven guilty, but politically the lesson of 2023 remains: despite alleged massive inducement, he lost. Ogun voters collected but voted conscience. That is why the card joker cannot subdue goodwill. The parallel attempt to turn the table with the allegation that Adebutu’s name is missing from the CTC of PDP membership register with INEC – which PDP chairman Abayomi Tella dismisses as laughable propaganda and says his name is there – only shows a campaign now defending eligibility while the other is commissioning projects.
Put together, the party structure factor seals it. APC controls the Presidency, the state government, and all local councils, with a grassroots machine that PDP, despite its historic strength in Ogun East, cannot match today. APC’s internal crack over Abayomi Hunye claiming zero votes in the primary and unveiling Otunba Abayomi Odunowo as running mate, which the national leadership calls impersonation, is minor compared to PDP’s existential crack – a candidate facing a pending criminal trial and eligibility questions while preaching good governance. In the end, elections do not manufacture consequences of leadership, they transfer authority to create them. Egba will not accept Iperu-to-Iperu continuity. Ijebu will not accept Iperu masquerading as Ijebu. Yewa will not accept another four years of waiting for the same town. That is why Ladi’s Iperu-to-Iperu insult mocks Ijebu, Egba and Yewa, and why it must be resisted at the ballot in 2027.
