On 24 March, The PUNCH broke the story, and other outlets confirmed it soon after.
At President Bola Tinubu’s Lagos Eid meeting, Sharafadeen Alli in Oyo, Obafemi Hamzat in Lagos, and Olamilekan Adeola (Yayi) in Ogun were all unveiled as consensus candidates in a pre-primary arrangement that has now become the anchor of the APC’s South-West strategy.
This was no ambush. Every aspirant and their promoters stepped into that Lagos gathering of APC heavyweights with hope in their pockets, convinced that “collegiate politics”, the South-West’s peculiar brand of collective decision-making, would tilt in their favour.
Here, consensus was not demonised; it was embraced as the highest form of party discipline. Yet, beneath the velvet glove lies an iron fist.
While consensus stabilises the structure, it simultaneously silences individual ambition.
