Critics fault Olusegun Osoba’s remarks on APC tensions, linking current divisions to years of internal party exclusion
Former Ogun State Governor, Aremo Olusegun Osoba’s recent warning about an alleged political “gang-up” against President Bola Ahmed Tinubu ahead of the 2027 election sounds less like patriotic concern and more like a desperate attempt at prescribing medicine after death.
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For a man widely regarded as one of the architects of political structure in Ogun State and an influential power broker within the APC, Osoba cannot conveniently distance himself from the very crisis he now pretends to fear.
The cracks in the ruling party, especially in Southern Nigeria, did not appear overnight.
They are products of years of internal suppression, exclusion politics, and the gradual destruction of democratic culture within party structures — realities many critics argue Osoba himself helped nurture.
It is intellectually dishonest for political elders to sound alarm bells only when the consequences of their political engineering begin to threaten the center.
The APC’s current challenges in Ogun State and parts of the South are not acts of sudden conspiracy by external enemies.
They are outcomes of accumulated grievances, alienated stakeholders, and a party system weakened by favoritism and imposition.
Under the watch and influence of powerful political godfathers, Ogun APC increasingly became a theater where loyalty mattered more than competence, where dissent was treated as rebellion, and where internal democracy suffered repeated assaults.
Many grassroots politicians who once labored to build the party were sidelined, humiliated, or politically buried for refusing to bow to entrenched interests.
The consequence today is predictable: fragmented loyalty, silent resistance, voter apathy, and growing resentment within the party’s traditional support base.
Osoba’s comments expose a troubling irony. The same political elite who normalized exclusionary politics now warn against disunity as though they were not principal actors in creating it.
One cannot spend years weakening democratic participation within a political family and suddenly become shocked when the house begins to shake.
President Tinubu’s political challenges in Southern Nigeria are deeper than opposition alliances.
They stem from the perception that the APC has gradually drifted away from inclusiveness, consultation, and ideological clarity.
Across the South, many young voters and long-standing party faithful feel disconnected from a system dominated by a few recurring political landlords.
This is why merely warning supporters to “remain vigilant” is insufficient. Vigilance without reform is meaningless.
If the APC truly seeks stability ahead of 2027, it must confront uncomfortable truths. The party must rebuild trust from the grassroots upward.
It must abandon the culture of imposition and restore transparent internal competition.
Political elders must stop treating party structures as personal estates handed down through influence rather than earned through consensus.
History teaches a hard lesson: parties rarely collapse from external attacks alone. More often, they decay internally before outsiders simply take advantage of the weakness.
Osoba’s statement may therefore be remembered not as a prophetic warning, but as an example of elite political hypocrisy, a late realization from a generation that helped create the very storm they now fear.
The South is changing politically. Citizens are becoming more conscious, more demanding, and less sentimental about old political loyalties.
The era where a few political heavyweights could dictate the direction of millions without accountability is gradually fading.
Also read: Lagos APC crisis deepens as Tinubu’s daughter rejects Justice Forum and Mandate Movement
And perhaps that is the real message hidden beneath Osoba’s fears.
David Okere is a journalist and contributor to Freelanews.com, covering business, governance, public affairs, and human-interest stories with a commitment to accuracy, balance, and public interest reporting.
