Welcome to the theatre of the desperate, otherwise known as the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) premature campaign for the 2027 Ogun State governorship race. If anyone harboured the illusion that the opposition had spent their time since the last election cycle crafting actual policies, the party’s candidate, Hon. Ladi Adebutu shattered everything to smithereens at Wednesday’s rally in Odogbolu. Instead of offering the Ijebu-Remo heartland a coherent vision, the perpetual candidate treated the crowd to a bitter, logic-defying tirade against the All Progressives Congress (APC) powerhouse, Senator Adeola Olamilekan Yayi.
It wasn’t a political speech; it was a public therapy session for a serial loser who still hasn’t processed his previous electoral losses. Adebutu’s Odogbolu meltdown is indeed a masterclass in Yewa envy and bad Ijebu-Remo geography. It ultimately exposed a terrified opposition.
Conversely, Senator Yayi has promised supporters and party members a decent campaign guided by decorous responses to political attacks by highlighting his team’s achievements and development initiatives.
“As we begin our campaign, I promise that our people will have information on issues and projects that will better their lives and not frivolous issues that tend to damage the good image of our dear state. When they go low and under, we will continue to soar higher with our delivered benefits for our people,” Yayi said at Thursday’s inauguration of Ogun APC Campaign Council in Abeokuta.
First on Adebutu’s list of grievances was a hilarious new category of political malpractice: “project diversion.” In a spectacular display of intellectual gymnastics, Adebutu alleged that Senator Yayi has been actively “stealing” infrastructure meant for other states and dumping them in Ogun State — specifically targeting Ogun West — just to score cheap political points. Let that absurd accusation breathe for a second. In a nation where citizens routinely curse politicians for diverting public funds into private bank accounts, Adebutu stood on Ijebu-Remo soil weeping because a Yewa Senator is diverting actual, tangible development into the Gateway State.
Oh, the absolute horror! Imagine the malice of a lawmaker who builds roads, equips schools, and empowers thousands of constituents across Ogun West and beyond with resources allegedly intended for somewhere else. If this is the new face of political corruption, then Ogun State desperately needs a pandemic of it. The sheer stupidity of criticising a politician for being too effective at delivering the dividends of democracy exposes the vacuum within the PDP leadership. They aren’t angry that the state is being neglected; they are furious that Yayi’s massive empowerment schemes are completely eclipsing Adebutu’s sporadic philanthropy.
But Adebutu wasn’t done. Having failed to make the infrastructure mud stick, he immediately pivoted to the oldest, laziest, and most divisive trick in the Ogun political playbook: the indigenous DNA test. Playing heavily to local sentiment, Adebutu proclaimed that the ranking Senator isn’t even a true son of Yewa or Ogun State at all. No, according to Ladi’s precise ancestral tracking, Yayi is actually an “atohunrinwa” from Ekiti State.
To give this baseless claim some artificial weight, Adebutu puffed out his chest in Odogbolu and dared the Senator to sue him. It is a pathetic, bottom-of-the-barrel strategy. We are talking about a man who successfully transitioned his politics from Lagos West to comfortably claim the Ogun West senatorial seat, yet the PDP’s grand strategy for 2027 relies entirely on launching an ancestral border dispute. It seems Adebutu has given up on winning the argument on governance and has rather resigned to moonlighting as an amateur genealogist, hoping to trigger old sub-ethnic biases.
Naturally, no opposition sermon is complete without the mandatory, copy-pasted lamentation about the “hardship and poor governance” of the ruling APC administration. Adebutu spent the remainder of his breath pleading with the Odogbolu electorate to reject the broom in 2027.
The hypocrisy would be amusing if it weren’t so tragic. You cannot, in the exact same speech, attack a politician for flooding the state with too many development projects and then turn around to claim the government is failing the people. Which one is it, Lado? Is the APC failing because they are doing nothing, or are they failing because Yayi is outperforming your entire political career using “contraband” infrastructure? The internal logic of your speech collapsed under the weight of its own bitterness.
When the dust settles on the Odogbolu rally, the takeaway is clear: the PDP is terrified of the shifting political tides. When your primary weapon against a political rival is that he works too hard for his constituents and that his great-grandfather might have preferred Ekiti pounded yam to Yewa “eko elewe,” you haven’t built a campaign. You’ve only built a comedy routine.
If this petty, vindictive rhetoric is the best Adebutu has to offer for 2027, then Senator Yayi can comfortably ignore the noise. He doesn’t need to sue anyone; he just needs to keep “diverting” hospitals, schools, and roads into Ogun State. As for Hon. Adebutu, it’s time he fired his speechwriters and bought himself a functioning GPS. Ogun voters want development, not a bitter history lesson from a man who can’t bear to see the state move forward without him.
. Olatunji, a Journalist, Political/Crisis Communication Strategist, writes from Ilaro, Ogun State
