The Lagos Card Won’t Rewrite Ogun History: Facts, Not Political Archaeology, Should Judge Yayi

BY ‘DARE ODUFOWOKAN

Falodun’s intervention in the discourse between me and Egbon Wale Adedayo is presented as a defence of political consistency. Fair enough. Political consistency is a legitimate subject for public debate. But consistency cannot be established by selectively remembering history, nor can political criticism be strengthened by turning questions into conclusions.

The piece attempted to raise legitimate questions about political consistency, but ended up making a fundamental mistake: it treats a political argument as though it can be settled by insinuation. The available records, in several places, directly contradicts his premises.

The central weakness of his argument is that it confuses where Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola built his early political career with where his family comes from. Those are two different questions.

Adeola has never denied being born in Lagos or spending the formative years of his political career there. His publicly available biography records that he was born at Lagos Island Maternity Hospital and educated in Alimosho. He subsequently represented Alimosho in the House of Representatives and Lagos West in the Senate.

But that does not establish that he is without Ogun ancestry. Indeed, the historical record predates the current 2027 contest. One naysayer asked a rhetorical question when he sought to know when Yayi ‘remebered’ his Ogun ancestory. I make bold to tell him that as far back as 2009, during an interview with National Life Newspaper, the then Hon. Solomon Adeola Olamilekan, described himself as an “Ogun State born Lagos based politician.” Speaking further during that interview, Yayi added that “it is my desire to return home someday to contribute to the development of my homestate like many of my political leaders and associates have done.” That was in 2009. I was not told. I was the interviewer as the then Political Editor of the newspaper.

Also, let me repeat that as far back as 2017, when the same controversy was already raging around Adeola’s proposed governorship bid, prominent Isaga elders publicly identified him as a bona fide son of Yewa. Chief Lawrence Osayemi, the Balogun of Isaga and former Pro-Chancellor of FUNAAB, explained that Adeola’s paternal great-grandfather, Olege, migrated from Isaga-Orile to Ago-Isaga/Pahayi in Ilaro following the Dahomey invasion.

Adeola himself explained the family history publicly in 2012, saying that his paternal lineage had settled in Ago-Isaga/Pahayi, Ilaro, from 1862 and that the wider Isaga population had dispersed across Yewa, Abeokuta, Lagos and even the Republic of Benin.

That matters because it demolishes one of the most convenient assumptions in the criticism: that Adeola woke up in 2022 or 2026 and suddenly invented an Ogun identity because he wanted political office. All emergency historians should be bold enough to admit that Yayi was making the same claim when he was already a Lagos politician, years before the present governorship contest.That is a fact.

The 2018 question also needs correcting. Falodun says that Adeola was “rejected” during his first Ogun governorship attempt and subsequently returned to Lagos. That description is misleading.

In 2018, Adeola was indeed being discussed as a possible APC governorship aspirant in Ogun. Documented record also shows that Adeola eventually withdrew from the governorship race and chose to pursue another Senate term in Lagos. And that distinction matters because a man who withdrew from a contest and continued serving the constituency for which he had already been elected cannot fairly be accused of abandoning a political constituency merely because he did not remain in Ogun to create confusion. Rather, Yayi should be applauded as a politician who knows how to bid his time patiently. His Lagos senatorial mandate was real. He had been elected to it. Politics is not a monastery where a politician must renounce an existing mandate before pursuing another legitimate political aspiration.

If Adeola’s relationship with Ogun West was merely an opportunistic invention, then the people of Ogun West had a rather straightforward opportunity to expose it. They did not. In the 2023 senatorial election, Adeola contested the Ogun West seat after leaving Lagos West and won with 112,887 votes, defeating the PDP candidate who scored 60,189. His victory was subsequently affirmed by the National and State Houses of Assembly Election Petition Tribunal, which dismissed the challenge to his election as lacking merit.

That is not genealogy. That is democracy. Ogun West voters had the ballot paper. They knew where Adeola had come from politically. They knew he had represented Lagos. They knew he was Lagos-born. They nevertheless elected him to represent them. Naysayers are therefore entitled to argue that Adeola is not the best candidate for governor. But they cannot manufacture the impression that Ogun West has somehow been denied an opportunity to pronounce on Adeola’s claim. On Yayi, Ogun West pronounced. And it pronounced decisively.

“Where was he when Ogun West was fighting?” This is another attractive question that becomes considerably weaker when confronted with the chronology. Adeola was not a political stranger to Yewaland before 2022. In 2021, the Yewa Traditional Council had already approved his conferment with the title of Aremo of Yewaland, and in 2022 the Olu of Ilaro and Paramount Ruler of Yewaland, Oba Kehinde Olugbenle, formally installed him. The monarch subsequently described Adeola as a bona fide son of Yewaland and said the title recognised his contribution to the development of the area.

One can disagree with the political implications of a traditional title. What one cannot honestly do is pretend that the traditional institution of Yewaland suddenly discovered Adeola’s existence on the eve of the 2027 election. More importantly, in 2022 Adeola publicly explained why he was leaving Lagos West for Ogun West. He acknowledged the people of Lagos West for giving him the opportunity to serve in the State House of Assembly, House of Representatives and Senate, but said he was returning to Ogun West because of the demands of Yewaland for representation, equity and development.

One may reject his explanation. But it exists. That is different from saying there was no explanation. The “he only came because Ogun West became available” argument is equally weak. Here again, chronology is inconvenient for the argument.

Adeola’s Ogun governorship interest was already being discussed in 2017–2018, years before he became the senator for Ogun West and years before the current 2027 contest. Contemporary reports from 2017 recorded both his governorship ambition and the controversy over his Yewa origin. Therefore, the proposition that he discovered Ogun West only after deciding that the zone offered him a convenient route to the governorship simply does not fit the timeline.

And what has he done since becoming Ogun West senator? This is where the debate should become empirical. Since 2023, Adeola has represented Ogun West in the Senate and has been associated with road, electricity, education, health, market and community projects across the district. For example, reporting in 2024 documented road projects including the Ilashe-Okere township road, Sabo-Babalawo Road and the Idogo-Ipaja Road project. A 2025 review of his legislative interventions reported projects including rural electrification, transformers, solar street lights, classrooms, police facilities and community infrastructure across Ogun West.

By December 2025, Adeola was also publicly stating that he had facilitated more than 300 projects in Ogun West and reaffirming his commitment to cultural and tourism development in the district. Those claims should absolutely be scrutinised. How many projects Where are they What did they cost? Who benefited? Were they completed What was the senator’s actual legislative contribution These are excellent questions.

But those are questions of performance, not ancestry. And they are infinitely more useful to Ogun voters than another excursion into nineteenth-century migration. The real concern is whether the claimed Ogun lineage is genuine. In Adeola’s case, that question was publicly addressed long before 2027. Isaga elders identified him as their son; his paternal family history was traced to Ago-Isaga/Pahayi in Ilaro; and the Olu of Ilaro and Yewa Traditional Council subsequently recognised him as a son of Yewaland.

Naysayers may dispute those historical accounts. They are entitled to. But disputing evidence is not the same thing as disproving it. The Constitution does not contain a “political residency” test. There is an even more fundamental problem. The 1999 Constitution, in Section 177, specifies the qualifications for election as governor: Nigerian citizenship by birth, the prescribed minimum age, membership and sponsorship by a political party, and the required educational qualification. It does not require a gubernatorial aspirant to have spent a prescribed number of years living in the state. It does not require a candidate to have previously contested a local government election there. It does not require a candidate to have built his first political structure there.

And it certainly does not require an “ancestral purity certificate” establishing that his great-grandfather never migrated elsewhere. Political parties and voters may have their preferences. Communities may have their own notions of belonging. Zoning may be politically powerful. But those political considerations should not be falsely presented as constitutional requirements. The real Ogun West question is bigger than Yayi.

There is one point on which even Yayi’s opponents should be able to agree. Since Ogun State was created in 1976, the governorship has been occupied by leaders associated with Ogun East, Ogun Central and other political constituencies, but Ogun West has never produced an elected civilian governor. The historical list of Ogun governors bears this out, while the present political leadership has itself acknowledged the zone’s nearly five-decade wait.

That is not an invention by Yayi. It existed before Yayi. It will exist after Yayi. And it cannot be dismissed simply because one particular politician has emerged as the leading beneficiary of the argument for power rotation. Indeed, Governor Dapo Abiodun’s 2026 presentation of Adeola as the APC’s Ogun West consensus candidate explicitly framed the decision as an attempt to correct the longstanding imbalance and noted that Ogun West had not produced a governor since the creation of the state.

The debate, therefore, should be: Is Ogun West entitled to seek the governorship in 2027? If the answer is yes, the next question is: Who among the available Ogun West candidates is most qualified to win and govern That is a legitimate political contest. Criticise Yayi—but criticise the record.

Many people for and against Yayi, are right about one thing: 2027 should not be reduced to ancestry. But that principle must be applied consistently. If Adeola is incompetent, demonstrate it. If his Senate record is poor, document it. If his projects are exaggerated, expose the figures. If his legislative performance is inadequate, show Ogun voters the evidence. If his temperament is unsuitable for the governorship, make the case. If another Ogun West aspirant is better qualified, present the candidate and demonstrate superiority.

That is politics. What is not convincing is to take a man’s birthplace, his previous constituency and his family migration history and construct from them a conclusion that the evidence does not support. Adeola’s story is not unique to Nigeria. His ancestors migrated. His family settled. He was born in Lagos. He built a political career in Lagos. He later returned to his ancestral political constituency. He won an election there. He has represented the constituency since 2023. And in 2026, his party selected him as its governorship candidate. Every one of those facts can be debated politically. None needs to be concealed. But neither should any be distorted.

The Lagos years are part of Yayi’s story. So are Isaga-Orile, Ago-Isaga, Pahayi and Ilaro. So is Yewaland.So is Ogun West. History does not become false because it contains migration. And political legitimacy does not become more convincing merely because an opponent refuses to acknowledge inconvenient facts. The 2027 election should therefore be a contest of competence, character, capacity, record, vision and electoral acceptability. If Yayi fails those tests, Ogun voters should reject him. If he passes them, no amount of political archaeology should disqualify him.

The people of Ogun—not naysayers, not Yayi, not the “emergency historians,” and not the politicians who seek to appropriate history for present-day advantage, will ultimately decide. And when that decision is made, history should record the facts as they were, not as political convenience wished them to be. Like they also said, History will be kind to those who stood by the truth, even when it was inconvenient.

Odufowokan writes from Abeokuta