By Segun Olatunji
Let’s pause for a moment of collective pity for the professional gatekeepers of Ogun State politics. Life must be terribly exhausting for them right now. Imagine waking up everyday, gazing at the calendar, watching 2027 gallop closer and realising your entire political strategy still dwells on a single, desperate, and completely flaccid argument: “But the atohunrinwa is from Lagos!, No, he’s from Ekiti!”
It is a hilarious psychological study in political panic. In the grand theatre of Ogun politics, a bizarre new doctrine has emerged from the camps of the threatened elite. According to these self-appointed purists, succeeding in the economic and political powerhouse of Lagos is no longer a badge of competence. To them, such a feat has officially been upgraded to a political war crime.
Of course, the target of this high-decibel hysteria is no other than Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola, universally known as Yayi, the All Progressives Congress governorship candidate for Ogun State in 2027.
For years, the anti-Yayi playbook was simple, lazy, and xenophobic: brand him an “atohunrinwa, Lagos interloper” who had no business crossing the Sango tollgate border to sniff at the governorship seat in Oke Mosan, Abeokuta. The only problem with that neat little narrative? The actual voters completely ignored it. Yayi effortlessly moved back home to Ogun West, picked up the senatorial ticket, and won the 2023 senatorial election to represent the district with a landslide that left his critics dazed and confused. You would think that devastating reality check would force the opposition to try a new strategy. Rather than photocopying, they just laminated the old playbook and started screaming stridently at the top of their voices.
The current line of attack from this bitter anti-Yayi coalition is as hypocritical as it is logically bankrupt. The argument essentially boils down to: “Yes, Yayi has served as a member of the Lagos State House of Assembly. Yes, he went to the House of Representatives. Yes, he became a two-term Senator representing Lagos West—the largest, most complex senatorial district in Nigeria. And yes, he delivered massive infrastructure there. But that is exactly why he must be stopped in Ogun! He knows how to win too much! He has an unmatched capacity!”
One has to admire the sheer, unadulterated absurdity of this logic. In what other profession do we disqualify a candidate because their resume is too intimidating? Imagine rejecting a world-class neurosurgeon because he performed too many successful operations in a premier Lagos hospital.
Their Empty Resumes
This brings us to the most delicious part of the entire circus: the staggering, desolate void that is the opposition’s own track record. While these politicians are busy hosting masterclasses on the dangers of “Lagos expansionism” by an “atohunrinwa”, one look at their own resumes is met with a profound, echoing silence. What exactly are they offering the voters instead of Yayi’s “atohunrinwa, Lagos-Ekiti crime spree”?
Let’s check the scoreboard. While Yayi was busy facilitating the Ilaro-Owode road reconstruction, his garrulous detractors were busy inaugurating what can only be described as world-class potholes. Their crowning infrastructural achievements over the last decade seem to consist entirely of erecting temporary campaign canopies, distributing custom-branded loaves of bread, and successfully managing the logistics of their own bank accounts.
It is pure comedic gold. You have politicians who have spent years in public office—some even representing sections of this same state—yet they cannot point to a single square metre of asphalt they have attracted to their communities. They have never built a classroom block, yet they have opinions on Yayi’s standard secondary school blocks across Ogun West. They have never provided a single solar street light, yet they gather in dark rooms—lit by one of the hundreds of high-capacity transformers Yayi distributed to dark communities—to plot how to “save” the state from a man who actually gets things done. Their entire political legacy is built on the profound philosophy of doing absolutely nothing, and they are deeply offended by a man who refuses to join their club of non-achievers.
Shattering the “West Only” Illusion
But if the opposition thought they could at least contain Yayi’s popularity to his home base in Ogun West, they are currently suffering a massive geopolitical panic attack. The old, lazy theory was that Yayi would be trapped by sub-ethnic politics. The gatekeepers assured themselves that the sophisticated electorate of Ogun Central and Ogun East would look down their noses with rejection for this “atohunrinwa, Lagos-Ekiti politician.”
Instead, the political geography of the state is shifting right under their feet, and the tremours are coming from Abeokuta and Ijebu-Ode.
In Ogun Central, the heart of Egbaland, the narrative of Yayi as a distant outsider has completely evaporated. The elite and the grassroots alike have noticed that Yayi’s influence as Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee doesn’t stop at the borders of his Ogun West Senatorial District. Egba voters are practical people; they see Federal allocations, institutional alignments and strategic development moving into the state, and they know exactly who is holding the pen. The political structures in Abeokuta are quietly, and in some cases very loudly, collapsing into the Yayi camp because the centre knows that governance is about leverage and delivering, not boundary lines.
The hypocrisy reaches its peak when you examine the lifestyles of the very politicians yelling loudest against Yayi. Not a few of them own their choice properties in Victoria Island, Lekki, Ikoyi, Ikeja GRA, Omole, Magodo GRA, Banana Islands and so on. They send their children to schools in Lagos. When they want to relax, they beat the gridlock down to the high-brow clubs of Victoria Island, Ikoyi and Lekki. They love the infrastructure of Lagos, they benefit from the economy of Lagos, but they violently recoil at the thought of a man who helped build that system bringing his expertise home to Ogun. It is a classic case of wanting the milk but criminalising the cow
Similarly, in Ogun East, the Ijebu and Remo axes, the panic among local opposition has reached fever pitch. Ogun East was supposed to be a hostile fortress, yet prominent community leaders, heavy-hitting grassroots mobilisers, and critical political stakeholders are openly throwing their weight behind the Yayi 2027 movement. Why? Because the business-minded, commerce-driven population of Ogun East recognises a Lagos-grade economic blueprint when they see one. They don’t want a governor who needs a map to find the state’s financial agencies; they want someone who has already managed a constituency budget larger than that of some West African countries. The “West-only” container has burst open, and Yayi’s support is flooding the entire state like an uninvited Lagos Atlantic Ocean tide.
When Royalty Ignores the Noise
What must truly make the anti-Yayi coalition sleepless at night, sweating through their expensive sheets, is the absolute failure of their cultural gatekeeping. They tried to claim that the ancient institutions of Ogun would reject a “Lagos-Ekiti atohunrinwa.” Yet, the most revered custodians of the state’s history and culture have already looked at the noisy opposition, appreciated Yayi’s track record and essentially told the critics to grow up.
Nowhere was this more devastatingly clear than in his own backyard, where the Olu of Ilaro and Paramount Ruler of Yewaland, Oba Kehinde Olugbenle, led the charge by bestowing upon him the highly prestigious traditional title of Aremo of Yewaland. You don’t make a man the “First Son” of your entire cultural bloc if you think he belongs on the other side of a border.
But the real heartbreaker for the opposition happened when Yayi stepped into the other senatorial districts. The royal fathers didn’t just open their palace gates; they rolled out the red carpets. The Alake and Paramount Ruler of Egbaland, Oba Adedotun Aremu Gbadebo, in the very capital city the opposition claims to guard, warmheartedly received Yayi, acknowledging his undeniable Federal clout and developmental focus. Down in Ogun East, the legendary Ijebu Obas, whose palace have historically been the ultimate litmus test for political weight, have consistently extended high-profile access and recognition to the Senator.
When the most powerful traditional rulers in Egba, Ijebu, and Yewa lands are giving you audiences, blessings and cultural validation, the frantic press releases from second-tier politicians start to look incredibly pathetic. The Obas want development for their people; they don’t care about the geographical anxiety of perpetual governorship candidates and serial election losers.
Infact, the various factions lining up against Yayi’s 2027 gubernatorial ambitions represent a colorful museum of political insecurity.
First, you have the “indigenous purity league.” These are the career politicians who believe that the primary qualification for governance is not a track record of performance, but a birth certificate indicating the village where a candidate’s umbilical cord was buried. To them, a politician who has spent the last twenty years doing absolutely nothing of note within the borders of Ogun State is infinitely superior to a man who was busy masterclassing governance and resource mobilisation in Lagos.
They speak of the Lagos-Ogun border as if it were the Berlin Wall, conveniently forgetting that more than half the citizens who sleep in Ogun State every night earn their living in Lagos during the daytime. While these purists are busy theorising about borders, Yayi has been busy tearing down practical barriers. He even extended his footprint by facilitating the asphalt paving of township roads in places like Aiyetoro and Ota. How dare he raise the bar so high that other politicians might actually have to cringe and bury their heads in shame?
One mustn’t forget the media mercenaries and their sponsors, who spend sleepless nights drafting lengthy, tortuous essays about the “atohunrinwa Lagos-Ekiti hegemony.” They write with trembling pens about how Yayi represents an “invasion.” It is pure comedy. An invasion of what, exactly? An invasion of standard-of-living improvements? If bringing the strategic, revenue-generating blueprint of Lagos governance into Ogun is an invasion, then the long-suffering masses at the grassroots are practically begging to be conquered.
While the critics are writing panicked press releases, the people are seeing the Yayi scholarship scheme sending hundreds of indigent Ogun State tertiary students to school with full tuition coverage. They are seeing the multi-million naira entrepreneurial grants distributed directly to market women and youth across the state. The opposition faces an impossible task: trying to convince a market woman with a newly expanded shop that she is being “oppressed” by an “atohunrinwa” Lagosian’s money.
The hypocrisy reaches its peak when you examine the lifestyles of the very politicians yelling loudest against Yayi. Not a few of them own their choice properties in Victoria Island, Lekki, Ikoyi, Ikeja GRA, Omole, Magodo GRA, Banana Islands and so on. They send their children to schools in Lagos. When they want to relax, they beat the gridlock down to the high-brow clubs of Victoria Island, Ikoyi and Lekki. They love the infrastructure of Lagos, they benefit from the economy of Lagos, but they violently recoil at the thought of a man who helped build that system bringing his expertise home to Ogun. It is a classic case of wanting the milk but criminalising the cow.
What the opposition camp fails to understand is that the electorate has outgrown archaic sentimentalism. The average voter in Ota, Ijebu-Ode, Sagamu or Abeokuta is not checking a candidate’s historical border logs; they are looking at their capacity and sincerity. They see a politician who commands immense respect at the Federal level, holding the powerful position of Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee—a position you do not get by being a political lightweight, and a role he has used to ensure Ogun State is firmly anchored in the national budget conversation.
To treat this level of political success and administrative clout as a liability is the height of political delusion. The opposition is fighting a battle against a ghost of their own creation. While they are busy organising seminars on why “atohunrinwa, Lagos politicians” shouldn’t be trusted, Yayi is busy doing what he does best: building structures, consolidating alliances, and delivering tangible projects that make the theoretical arguments of his detractors look incredibly silly.
So, the critics can continue their panicked choruses. They should write their petitions and paint their doomsday scenarios. They can keep treating Yayi’s stellar political career in Lagos as a geopolitical felony. But while they are busy playing gatekeepers to an empty house, the train is moving. By the time 2027 arrives, the opponents of Yayi will discover the hard way that they cannot defeat a solid track record with their “indigeneship” geography. In the end, the voters of Ogun State will choose performance over pedigree, leaving the “Egbere” professional crybabies to cry themselves hoarse and nurse their grievances at the Lagos-Ogun border.
. Olatunji, a Journalist, Political/Crisis Communication Strategist, writes from Ilaro, Ogun State
