TDThe emerging conversations around consensus arrangements within the All Progressives Congress in Oyo State ahead of the 2027 elections must be approached with wisdom, caution, and deep historical sensitivity.
Oyo State is not just another political territory in Nigeria. Ibadan, particularly Ibadan South, remains one of the spiritual and strategic capitals of South West politics. What politically pumps from Ibadan often reverberates across Yorubaland and, by extension, the Nigerian federation.
That is why every political calculation concerning Oyo State must be handled with restraint, fairness, and historical consciousness.
The reported Abuja meeting between the national leadership of the APC and Oyo State executives may ordinarily appear like a routine party engagement. But beneath the surface lies a more delicate reality: the future stability of the party in one of the most politically symbolic states in Nigeria.
Consensus itself is not evil.
In fact, consensus politics can help reduce internal bitterness, prevent financial recklessness during primaries, and strengthen party cohesion. But consensus loses moral legitimacy the moment it becomes a mechanism for imposing entrenched interests against the democratic expectations of party faithful and the larger public.
This is where the caution of Seyi Makinde regarding “wetie” politics becomes deeply relevant.
The South West has experienced before what happens when political arrogance, exclusion, manipulation, and desperation combine to overheat the political environment. The painful memories of the “Wild Wild West” era must never become a recurring decimal in Yoruba political history.
Nigeria today is already too fragile economically, socially, and politically to survive another cycle of combustible politics in the South West.
And the APC leadership under Nentawe Yilwatda must recognise the delicate symbolism of this moment.
The South West is the political home of Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The fire with which the enemies of Nigeria may hope to destabilise the country politically in 2027 must not be kindled from the President’s balcony in Lagos or his backyard in Ibadan.
The Yoruba have a proverb for moments like this:
“Eni ti ayé fẹ́ sun jẹ́, kì í fi epo para jókòó sí ẹ̀gbẹ́ iná.”
He whom the world seeks to destroy does not sit beside fire after rubbing himself with oil.
That proverb must speak loudly to the APC at this critical hour.
The party must avoid creating avoidable bitterness capable of mutating into rebellion, protest votes, silent sabotage, or political fragmentation.
Most importantly, the era demands that the party begins to intentionally create space for credible greenhorns who possess competence, pedigree, public credibility, and clean records even if they do not possess traditional thuggery structures or entrenched political machinery.
This is the generational demand emerging across Nigeria.
The younger population is increasingly rejecting the old political culture where intimidation, financial influence, violence, and dynasty networks determine leadership emergence.
The South West must not become resistant to this political evolution.
The political future of the Yoruba people was not built historically by thuggery merchants. It was built by teachers, intellectuals, journalists, professionals, administrators, technocrats, community leaders, and disciplined grassroots mobilisers.
The crisis today is that politics has increasingly become hostile to decent people.
That must change.
In Oyo South particularly, the APC must understand that every senatorial and governorship calculation carries symbolic implications beyond ordinary party arithmetic.
The emergence of candidates perceived as products of fairness, credibility, and competence could strengthen democratic legitimacy and energise younger voters. But the emergence of candidates seen merely as products of imposition, dynasty preservation, financial dominance, or entrenched structures may deepen political cynicism and voter apathy.
The APC must therefore balance consensus with credibility.
The future stability of the party may depend on it.
Consensus should not become code for exclusion.
Nor should political experience become a weapon against fresh credibility.
This is why aspirants without violent political structures but with proven records of service, intellectual depth, professional accomplishment, and public integrity deserve serious consideration within the party’s internal calculations.
The South West must not lose its political soul in pursuit of electoral convenience.
History is watching.
And perhaps more importantly, the younger generation is watching.
2027 will not merely be another election cycle. It may become a referendum on whether Nigerian politics can evolve beyond the old order of money, manipulation, and machinery.
The APC still has an opportunity to demonstrate that democratic maturity and internal fairness are possible within a major political party.
But wisdom demands urgency.
Because political fires are easier to prevent than to extinguish once ignited.
Citizen Bolaji O Akinyemi
Apostle and Nation Builder
bolajiakinyemi66@gmail.com
