Oyo State has enjoyed a good run with its last two governors, Abiola Ajimobi and the current governor, Seyi Makinde, whose two-term tenure will end in 2027. The citizens point to visible physical developments and relative peace, especially within the state capital, Ibadan. So, the next governor must also be competent and experienced.

Admirers say that Adebayo Adelabu, who appears to be the preeminent contender, fits the bill. He is a Fellow of Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria and an alumnus of the consultancy firm, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, from where he was seconded to lead the turnaround team on “Project EAGLE” for reengineering and corporate renewal of the Central Bank of Nigeria.

From CBN, he moved into core banking with First Atlantic Bank, Standard Chartered Bank and First Bank of Nigeria, where he was Executive Director/Chief Financial Officer. In 2014, President Goodluck appointed him CBN Deputy Governor, Operations.

After CBN, he went into farming and the hospitality business. In 2019, he contested to be the governor of Oyo State and lost to Governor Makinde. Some argue that his loss was due to public disaffection with Ajimobi, his sponsor, whose wont is to always put his foot in his mouth. 

Adelabu contested the loss of the election in the court but accepted the verdict that declared Governor Makinde as the winner. He returned home to mind his business until 2023, when he contested and lost the primaries of the All Progressives Congress to Senator Teslim Folarin.

Adelabu, who is yet to publicly declare his intention to run for Oyo State Governor in 2027, is alleged to have told someone who asked if he would run, “Let’s leave everything in the hands of God, and allow the people of Oyo State to decide.”

He may have said this in deferment to Section 84(12) of the Electoral Act 2022, which says, “No political appointee at any level shall be (a) voting delegate or be voted for, at a convention or congress of any political party for the purpose of the nomination of candidates for any election.”

But then, Adelabu, who has never won an election, has a formidable opponent in three-term senator and former Senate Leader, Senator Folarin, to whom he lost the 2022 gubernatorial primaries of the APC. This caused him to temporarily defect to the Accord Party, from where President Bola Tinubu “retrieved” him and appointed him Minister of Power.

Folarin studied political science at the University of Ibadan before proceeding to Harvard University for a diploma. He then worked with Her Majesty’s Department (Ministry) of Trade in Britain and returned to Nigeria in 2002 to observe the mandatory one-year National Youth Service Corps. After that, he went straight into politics to win his first term as a senator.

But in 2023, Folarin lost the governorship election to Governor Makinde. Apart from politics, he is an Ibadan traditionalist. He may become the Olubadan, as he has started climbing the ladder as Mogaji of his family and the Laguna Olubadan.

Former Governor Rashidi Ladoja, who was a senator representing Oyo State and an astute businessman, who is next in line to be Olubadan, may have inspired Senator Folarin’s aspiration to be Oyo State governor and Olubadan.

The other Adelabu, cerebral Dr Zach Adelabu Adedeji, Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service, former Oyo State Commissioner for Finance and alumnus of American multinational, Procter & Gamble, is said to have declined running for governor in 2027. But fingers are still crossed.

So Adelabu and Senator Folarin, both members of the APC, may be the contestants for governor in 2027. No one is quite sure who will contest from the People’s Democratic Party or any other political party. Governor Makinde does not seem to have a preferred candidate.

Some say that his “collabo” with presidential candidate Tinubu in the 2023 general elections may have led to an “understanding” for his trading of the office of the governor for a senatorial ambition that has not yet been declared. But, of course, this is in the realm of speculation.

But there is some doubt against Adelabu’s speculated ambition to contest the governorship election in 2027 from his opponents, who say that his tenure as Minister of Power has yet to deliver the expected results to Nigerians.

His admirers, however, argue that Nigerians will soon witness a turnaround because he has been able to gain ample mastery of the knowledge that can help revive the electricity sector that appears jinxed by insurmountable challenges.

Also, they argue that perhaps the current operational template that puts electricity generation, transmission and distribution in silos, instead of integrating them in each of the regional markets, is the Achilles’ heel of the electricity sector.

They draw an analogy from the argument that, as is, Nigeria itself may not achieve much political, economic and social progress until the polity is restructured so that each state, or at least each region, can handle its economy at its level.

This will mean that the whole gamut of governance, electricity, water supply, railways, agriculture, industry, mineral resources and others will be handled at the sub-national level, and no one will have to go cap in hand to the monthly meeting of the Federation Account Allocation Committee for funds from the suzerains in Abuja.

This theory works for those who argue that Adelabu should transition to the sub-national level as the governor of Oyo State, where, as the chief executive officer, he can use his acumen and skills in management and finance for the benefit of the people.

They point to Babatunde Fashola, who was an excellent governor of Lagos State but had limited success as Minister of Power, Works and Housing under the unusually absent-minded President Muhammadu Buhari. In other words, Adelabu needs to be his own man to deliver a superlative performance. That is a probable argument.

By the way, mischief-makers, who flew the kite of the sacking of Adelabu and the Ministers of Defence, Muhammad Badaru Abubakar and Bello Matawalle, by President Tinubu, could have aborted Adelabu’s quest to be governor or jump-started his runs.

One good reason for competent personnel, policies and programmes at Nigeria’s sub-national government levels is the call by President Tinubu and his communication team that the media and the citizens must pay more attention to the activities of state governors who now receive higher remittances from FAAC.

The enormous financial resources that are now available to state governors and local government chairmen, as a result of the removal of petrol and other subsidies, should not be placed in the hands of incompetents or kleptomaniacs.

Increasing agitation across the country for fiscal federalism and stronger regions calls for more competent hands as administrators at the state or regional levels. The days of mediocre managers at state and local government levels are running out.

Will President Tinubu support Adelabu, his Minister of Power, for Oyo State governor? Observers think he will likely go in that direction. But the observers also insist that Adelabu must work hard to snatch the oyster from wily Senator Folarin.

They say he must invoke the spirit of his grandfather, late Ibadan stormy petrel, Adegoke “Penkelemesi” Adelabu, to swing the electorate to his side. With recent defections to the APC, President Tinubu’s APC choice may become the next Oyo State governor.

So, Adelabu and Folarin each have just one more political river to cross.