Politicians are once again set to do battle in the three senatorial districts of Oyo State ahead of the January 16, 2027 polls. From Oyo North to Oyo Central and Oyo South, candidates are set to engage in a fierce contest that would precede the victory dance. The outcome is difficult to predict owing to the state’s long history of political shifts after successive election seasons. There is fragmentation in the major parties, especially Governor Seyi Makinde’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), having to collapse into the Allied People’s Movement (APM), as well as the rumblings in the All Progressives Congress APC). BIOLUWATIFE AKINYEMI, in this analysis, examines the key contenders and the emerging dynamics that could shape the outcome of the January elections.
By the time Nigerians go to the polls on January 16, 2027, leadership in Oyo State’s three senatorial districts – Oyo North, Oyo Central and Oyo South – will have changed hands so often since 1999 that the word ‘incumbent’ has lost its real essence of predictability. Save for Oyo North, where Senator Fatai Buhari has retained the seat since the 2015 election cycle, making himself a three- term Senator, the two other zones-Oyo South and Central- have been involved in a game of musical chairs. Now, with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) split into two rival factions and Governor Seyi Makinde leading his supporters to the little-known Allied People’s Movement (APM), there is bound to be some effects on the usually competitive senatorial race in the state.
A quarter-century of instability
Since the return to democracy in 1999, Oyo’s three seats have rotated through five different party labels – the Alliance for Democracy (AD), the PDP, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the All Progressives Congress (APC), and briefly the African Democratic Congress (ADC). The AD swept all three seats in 1999, riding on the pro-democracy/Afenifere sentiment that prevailed at the time. The PDP made some incursions in the 2003 election, winning Oyo North with Senator Robert Koleoso and Oyo Central with Senator Teslim Folarin. The AD, however, retained Oyo South with Senator Abiola Ajimobi emerging as the Senator. In the 2007 election, the PDP won the three senatorial seats, but by 2011, two seats went to the newly formed ACN, while the PDP retained one. By 2015, the merger politics that produced the APC delivered a clean sweep for the new ruling party. By 2019, it was able to win two of the seats, losing Oyo South to Senator Kola Balogun of the PDP. By 2023, however, the three senatorial seats went to the APC, though with new faces, except for Oyo North, whose senator remained in office since 2015. In Oyo Central in 2023, the then incumbent Senator Teslim Folarin had chosen to vacate his seat to pursue a gubernatorial run, which he lost, thus enabling the APC to produce Senator Yunus Akintunde. Thus, while the APC won two of the three seats in 2019, it made a clean sweep of the three seats in the 2023 election, with Buhari, Yunus Akintunde, and Senator Sharafadeen Alli emerging in the North, Central, and South.
The deeper story in the above is not just that one party hardly makes a clean sweep for successive elections; the fact also remains that no particular candidate retains the seat consecutively except for Fatai Buhari of Oyo North. Teslim Folarin, former Senate Leader and one of the most recognisable Oyo Senators, won the Oyo Central seat on three occasions, but only succeeded himself once in 2007. Everyone else – Senators Lekan Balogun, Robert Koleoso, Peter Adeyemo, Abiola Ajimobi, Kamorudeen Adedibu, Olufemi Lanlehin, Monsurat Sunmonu, Rilwan Akanbi, and Mohammed Kola Balogun – served a single term and moved on. They were either defeated or chose to pursue other ambitions.
Therein lies the peculiarity of Oyo State politics. It was also the same for the governorship seat until Ajimobi broke the single-term jinx in 2015. Whereas in many Nigerian states, a senator who wins once tends to consolidate a base and run again, sometimes for a decade or more. Oyo State scenario hardly gives room for such longevity. In this republic thus far, only Fatai Buhari and Teslim Folarin have presented some varied exceptions. Part of the explanation lies in the sheer size and diversity of each district: Oyo Central alone stretches across eleven local government areas, including five local governments in Ibadan, four in Oyo zone and two in Ogbomoso axis. This means that a winning coalition in one election cycle – built, say, around an Ibadan-city base – can be outflanked four years later by a candidate who consolidates the Oyo/Ogbomoso axes. In Oyo North, an unwritten code has seen the Senatorial and deputy governorship seats rotated between Oke-Ogun and Ogbomoso axes in a delicate balancing act. This is because the configuration of the zone is split between ten councils in Oke-Ogun and three thickly populated local governments in the Ogbomoso axis. In Oyo South, Ibadan is dominant, with two local governments from Ibarapa to make up the zone.
The fracture that changes everything
Unlike the 2023 scenario, when the APC was faced with a cohesive PDP, the 2027 situation will be different. The movement of Governor Seyi Makinde of the PDP to the fringe APM would likely take its toll on the competitiveness of the political structures, especially following the division in the ranks of the PDP after the takeover of the PDP at the national level by the loyalists of the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike. The fact that some members of the original PDP are still going about flying the flag of the party despite Makinde’s defection to the APM could amount to political distractions that could hurt some candidates. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has recognised the Wike-backed National Working Committee under Abdulrahman Mohammed as the party’s legitimate leadership for 2027 processes; thus, the candidates on the platform are recognised on the INEC portal.
Weeks after Governor Makinde was unveiled as the APM’s presidential candidate, the defections that followed were not symbolic – six sitting members of the House of Representatives from Oyo’s PDP caucus crossed the floor to APM in a single sitting, and the governor’s preferred candidates across the state, from the governorship down to state assembly seats, were instructed to contest under the APM umbrella rather than the PDP ticket that had carried Makinde to two terms as governor.
The practical effect on the Senate race is significant. Shina Peller, the nightclub-and-hospitality entrepreneur who had emerged as the Makinde camp’s consensus PDP candidate for Oyo North, resigned and moved to APM alongside the governor. Olufemi Ajadi Oguntoyinbo, a longtime grassroots PDP figure from Egbeda who had briefly eyed the governorship before party elders redirected him to the Senate race, followed suit and now carries the APM ticket for Oyo Central. Meanwhile, the Wike-backed PDP structure in Oyo has released its own House of Representatives candidate list, suggesting it intends to contest the state independently of Makinde.
The district-by-district picture
In Oyo North, the contest looks set to be a straight fight between the APC’s Hannah Ogunesan – one of the few women fielded for any of these three seats across the entire post-1999 period – and Shina Peller’s APM candidacy, with the ADC’s Sule Kabiru Ayinde and the SDP’s consensus nominee running as lower-tier contenders. Abdulfatai Buhari, the district’s three-term senator, is not seeking a fourth term as far as current filings indicate, which removes the one genuinely proven incumbent from the board and opens the seat more than it has been open since 2015.
Oyo Central may be the most closely watched race of the three, partly because of the governorship-zoning argument tied to it. The APC has renominated its sitting senator, Yunus Akintunde, an energy-sector academic and businessman who won comfortably in 2023. Against him stands Ajadi’s APM/PDP alliance ticket. Ajadi’s ally, Bimbo Adekanmbi, the party’s governorship candidate, also hails from Oyo Central, whose influence could also be of advantage. ADC’s senatorial candidate for the zone, Kamil Akinlabi Mudashiru, and the SDP’s Alade Ismail Olatunji are also major contenders on the field. Akinlabi is from Oyo like Yunus Akintunde, and the battle in the four Oyo councils is expected to be intense.
Oyo South carries its own twist: incumbent senator Sharafadeen Alli, a lawyer and former state government secretary, is now the gubernatorial candidate for the state. His senatorial seat is now being contested by Hon Aderemi Oseni, who currently represents the Ido/Ibarapa federal constituency of the state. With Alli on the guber ticket and the APC pushing for a return to the Government House, Agodi, Ibadan, the battle is expected to be intense, while Hon Stanley Akinjide, another member of the House of Representatives, is flying the flag of the APM/PDP alliance. The ADC’s Tanimowo Modupe Grace and the SDP’s Ayoade Raimi Baale are also top contenders, just like PDP’s Bolanle Sarumi, who is seeking the senatorial seat for Oyo South. A former aide to Governor Makinde, Sarumi, popularly known as BASA, is a known face in the polity, having contested the governorship seat in 2019, before emerging as a Special Assistant to the governor on Diaspora Matters. With BASA on the ticket for Oyo South, the Wike-backed PDP may have a good showing in the contest.
For Oyo North, Hannah Ogunesan’s candidature for the APC equally carries a huge weight, just as she will have to battle it out with fellow Oke-Ogun indigene and candidate of the APM/PDP alliance, Peller.
What will actually decide it?
As the 2027 elections draw closer, it is clear that the pattern that has governed every National Assembly election in Oyo State since 1999 may just repeat itself in the forthcoming elections. In Oyo elections, national political winds matter less here than local structures play a big role, as well as the ability to build a coalition that spans the necessary strongholds. The APC enters 2027 with the advantage of incumbency in all three senatorial seats, but that does not give a clue as to where the pendulum would swing in 2027. The picture of 2023 still hovers in the air,r as APC’s record in that election shows that where it won, the PDP finished a close second. Again, 2027 would present a fractured PDP, with one faction standing with Governor Makinde in APM and another standing with Wike. The APC is seeking to clean sweep the political structure of the state, not just the National Assembly elections. How all this would pan out remains to be seen. The contestants would, however, need to show their qualities to enable the people to decide who gets their votes.