Yayi’s Ancestry: Opppsition’s Wolf Cry Over Fear Of Defeat

Femi Ogbonnikan

Just as in the national arena, opposition parties and their candidates in Ogun State are wasting valuable time and resources on legal technicalities and ancestry claims to undermine their political opponents.

Instead of addressing the state’s pressing socio-economic challenges, they are attempting to lock in election outcomes before a single vote is cast.
Rather than presenting superior policy alternatives, their main campaign strategy relies on courtroom manoeuvres and sub-ethnic identity politics.​
Particularly troubling is the persistent smear campaign currently directed at the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship frontrunner, Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola, popularly known as Yayi. When prominent figures like Ambassador Folake Marcus-Bello reduce political debate to a candidate’s ancestral roots, it reveals a profound disregard for the true intricacies of governance. Rather than addressing the critical issues that require urgent solutions—such as infrastructure deficits, economic integration, youth employment, and educational funding—whipping up parochial sentiments is a tactic beneath the stature and dignity expected of a former diplomat.​

The ongoing dispute over Senator Adeola’s lineage highlights a critical, recurring dynamic in Ogun politics: the deep intersection of sub-ethnic identity, emotional sentiment, and an entitlement mentality.
But emotion has no place in modern politics. Ideas rule the world, not ancestry.

Beyond emotion, the Ogun State electorate has become far more sophisticated. Voters are no longer swayed by who came from where, but by who can deliver what.
Ancestral lineage is not a ticket to Government House. It does not build roads, it does not equip hospitals, it does not create jobs, and it does not pay salaries.
Governance demands real capacity for problem-solving, fiscal discipline, and a clear vision for a better society.​

For the avoidance of doubt, the facts of Senator Adeola’s ancestry are verifiable and a matter of public record, not moonlight tales. Though born and raised in Lagos—a common reality for many Ogun indigenes whose parents migrated for economic reasons—his ancestral roots are firmly established in Ogun State.
He is an Ishaga descendant of the Pahayi quarters in Ilaro, Yewa South Local Government Area, and also of Isaga Orile in Abeokuta North Local Government Area.
This is not a claim invented for the 2027 governorship campaign. His Yewa identity was the bedrock of his West-to-West political movement when he transitioned from Lagos West Senatorial District (2015–2023) to contest and win the Ogun West senatorial seat in 2023.

Traditional institutions have repeatedly affirmed his heritage; the Pahayi community and the Kemta Traditional Council have both publicly verified his lineage.​
Just recently, Senator Adeola led his family to bury the head of his house, Pa Adelani Ogundimu, in Pahayi, Ilaro, with full Yewa traditional rites on Yewa soil, witnessed by Yewa elders and community leaders.

The recycled claim that he is from Ekiti State is not only false but legally actionable. During a recent television interview, his accusers could not name a single town or village in Ekiti State when pressed, exposing the emptiness of the allegation—a falsehood Senator Adeola has now formally challenged with a 24-hour legal notice.​
If the opposition truly believes it has a better offer for Ogun State, the time has come to bring it to the policy table.

This is a direct challenge to all aspirants: showcase your capacity to govern as against Senator Adeola’s proven experience and tangible contributions to Ogun’s socio-economic development.
For over a decade, Adeola has not waited for Government House to start serving the state.

Long before this election cycle, his footprint was visible across Ogun West and beyond. Through facilitation, lobbying, and personal intervention, he has delivered hundreds of transformers to energize communities that had been in darkness for years, rehabilitated critical roads that connect farm settlements to urban markets, built modern school blocks, equipped primary health centers, and provided bursaries, scholarships, and vocational tools that have empowered thousands of youths.​

In Yewaland, where detractors claim he has no roots, his infrastructural projects speak for him. From Ilaro to Imeko-Afon, from Ado-Odo/Ota to Ipokia and to Aiyetoro, his constituency interventions have complemented the state government’s efforts and brought the federal presence closer to the people.

This is not emergency philanthropy staged for an election season; it is a consistent pattern of public service. What is the opposition’s alternative record?

For many of the loudest voices in this ancestry debate, public service has been a tale of political titles without tangible impact.
Some have held appointive positions at both state and federal levels, yet there is little to show in terms of legislation, policy reform, or community development that directly improved the lives of Ogun citizens.​

Capacity to govern is measurable. First, it is measured by fiscal management. As Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Senator Adeola routinely interrogates Nigeria’s national budget running into trillions of naira.
He understands statutory revenue, expenditure allocation, debt sustainability, and the delicate balance between recurrent spending and capital development—a critical skill set Ogun State desperately needs as federal allocations fluctuate.
Second, it is measured by legislative experience and the ability to build cross-national consensus. Third, it is measured by job creation and economic vision.
While others talk abstractly about youth empowerment, Adeola has funded skills acquisition centers, supported MSMEs with grants and equipment, and consistently advocated for the completion of the Lagos–Ota–Abeokuta expressway and the revival of the Kajola rail wagon plant as catalysts for regional industrial growth.​

Finally, capacity is measured by inclusivity. In a diverse state like Ogun, with its historical Egba, Ijebu, Remo, and Yewa/Awori sub-ethnic blocs, what is required is a unifier who views the entire state as one single constituency.
Adeola’s politics has never been sectional or provincial.
Therefore, let the upcoming campaign be strictly issue-based. Let every candidate publish their comprehensive economic blueprint for Ogun’s $6 billion economy. Let them show how they intend to double internally generated revenue without overtaxing small businesses, how they will harness the state’s strategic proximity to Lagos for shared economic expansion, how they will make Ogun’s 12 industrial estates fully functional, and how they will systematically tackle out-of-school children and maternal mortality.​

If your primary campaign strategy is merely to shout “He is not from here,” then you have already conceded that you have no substantive developmental vision to offer the electorate.​

Ultimately, the resort to the courts by Adeola’s detractors to litigate ancestry is a futile exercise in both law and politics that is bound to fail, and the electorate knows it. The 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) is unambiguous. Section 177 prescribes only four explicit requirements for governorship: citizenship by birth, attainment of 35 years of age, membership in a political party duly sponsoring the candidate, and education up to the secondary school certificate level or its equivalent.

Furthermore, Section 42 expressly prohibits any form of discrimination based on place of origin, sex, or ethnic group. Nowhere does the Constitution require a political candidate to obtain ancestral clearance from a local political association or sub-ethnic interest group. To import such a requirement is to attempt to create an extra-constitutional criterion that no competent court of law can enforce.​

Nigerian jurisprudence on citizenship and state rights is well established: courts have consistently held that local notions of indigeneity cannot supersede constitutional citizenship.
Any suit seeking to disqualify Senator Adeola on the artificial ground that he is not an “original” son of Yewaland will inevitably fail on the threshold grounds of locus standi, lack of jurisdiction, and abuse of court process.
The Supreme Court of Nigeria has repeatedly settled this principle across numerous electoral cases: only an aspirant who actually participated in a political party’s primary election possesses the legal standing (locus standi) to challenge a candidate’s qualification, thereby excluding third-party litigants pursuing a provincial agenda.

​Furthermore, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), rather than village associations or socio-political clubs, is the statutory body empowered to determine administrative compliance regarding candidate nomination. INEC accepted Senator Adeola’s documentation for the Ogun West senatorial contest in 2023 without legal blemish, validating his eligibility under federal law.
Legally, these pending and threatened lawsuits are dead on arrival; politically, they are entirely self-defeating.
Each time detractors file a suit or stage a press conference focusing on ancestry, they merely remind the electorate that they lack an alternative developmental plan for the state.

The people of Ogun State have witnessed litigation deployed as a political weapon in past election cycles and recognize that court filings have never constructed a single kilometer of road, equipped a single health facility, or created a single job.​

Election campaigns provide candidates with a legitimate platform to demonstrate genuine policy competence and executive readiness.

Beyond the fanfare, spectacle, and media briefings of electioneering, voters seek a clear, compelling articulation of ideas that offers actionable solutions. In this election cycle, the focus of key stakeholders and the broader public has shifted away from empty rhetoric, emotional appeals, and tactical political manoeuvering.

The central mandate facing Ogun State is consolidating its status as Nigeria’s premier industrial hub and expanding economic opportunities across all its administrative zones.

On election day, the ballot paper does not ask for a family tree; it asks for a choice about the future. You cannot defeat a candidate’s track records by attempting to rewrite his ancestry, nor can you erase verified performance with political propaganda. Power belongs to the sovereign electorate, not to self-appointed gatekeepers of origin. Ideas, governance capacity, and concrete achievements—not bloodlines—will determine Ogun State’s next governor.

*Ogbonnikan writes from Okeagbede, in Imeko-Afon LGA of Ogun state