Iyabo Obasanjo said on Thursday that she backed the Ogun State All Progressives Congress move to settle on consensus for its 2027 governorship race, and she immediately suspended her own bid after Dapo Abiodun named Solomon Adeola the party’s preferred candidate at a caucus meeting in Abeokuta on April 13, 2026.
Obasanjo said she had pushed for consensus throughout her consultations because, in her words, it was a strategic way to reduce tension, prevent internal divisions and position the party for success in 2027. She said she congratulated Adeola as soon as he was announced and paused all activities tied to her aspiration, saying she had kept faith with the party’s decision.
Her account, however, adds a sharper edge to a process the party has presented as a unity move. Obasanjo alleged that some of her supporters were denied entry to the meeting and that two were physically assaulted by a party functionary, serious enough, she said, to require medical attention. She said the incident was not in line with the discipline, order and mutual respect the APC says it represents.
Obasanjo, identified by Punch Newspapers as a former senator who represented Ogun Central Senatorial District from 2007 to 2011 and a former commissioner for health, also said she and Mr Tunde Lemo were not acknowledged during the proceedings despite their consultations and grassroots support across the state. She said some aspirants who stepped down, particularly from one zone, were recognized, but others present in the hall were not.
The episode leaves the Ogun APC trying to sell consensus as proof of unity while fielding complaints that the process was not equally open to everyone in the room. Obasanjo said that she remains loyal to the APC, is not defecting and will continue to support Adeola and President Bola Tinubu, but her remarks make clear that the question for the party is no longer whether it chose a candidate — it is whether it chose him in a way every hopeful can accept.
