Obasa Allies Dump APC for APM After Losing Agege Assembly Tickets

The political battle over the 2027 Lagos State House of Assembly elections has taken a fresh turn in Agege, as two political allies of Lagos Speaker Mudashiru Obasa have dumped the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the Allied Peoples’ Movement (APM) after losing the party’s tickets for the Agege Constituencies I and II.

The two politicians are Ganiyu Kola Egunjobi, who is seeking the Agege Constituency I seat, and Azeez Oladapo Yusuf Ninolowo, an aspirant for Agege Constituency II.

Both men reportedly emerged winners in the APC primary process before the party subsequently produced different candidates following an internal review.

Egunjobi, who was seeking the Agege Constituency I ticket, was replaced by Oluwagbenga Abiola, while Ninolowo lost the Agege Constituency II ticket to Enimakure Akindele Sakiru.

The development has now triggered a political realignment in Agege, with Egunjobi and Ninolowo moving to the APM, where they are expected to pursue their ambitions for the two Assembly seats.

Egunjobi had reportedly polled 9,132 votes in the initial APC primary for Agege Constituency I, while Ninolowo secured 8,299 votes in Agege Constituency II. The subsequent alteration of the candidates has therefore raised questions about the process through which the original results were reviewed and replaced.

Egunjobi has publicly challenged the revised outcome, alleging that the later result did not reflect the votes recorded during the primary exercise. The allegation places the controversy beyond a simple case of political defection and raises questions about how much weight the original primary results carried in the APC’s final candidate-selection process.

The defections are significant because both politicians are regarded as political allies of Obasa, who has maintained a formidable political structure in Agege after years at the centre of Lagos politics.

The development comes only months after Obasa himself secured the APC ticket to contest the Agege Federal Constituency seat in the 2027 House of Representatives election. Radio Nigeria reported that he emerged as the APC’s candidate after the party’s May 2026 primary.

That contrast Obasa securing the federal ticket while two allies reportedly lost their Assembly tickets is likely to intensify attention on the internal balance of power within the APC’s Agege structure.

The immediate question is whether the movement of Egunjobi and Ninolowo to the APM will remain a limited protest against the handling of the Assembly tickets or develop into a broader challenge to the APC’s political machinery in the constituency.

Obasa’s political journey in the last two years has already been marked by one of the most dramatic leadership crises in the Lagos Assembly.

On January 13, 2025, lawmakers removed him as Speaker and elected his then deputy, Mojisola Meranda, as his replacement. The lawmakers cited allegations including high-handedness, abuse of office and financial misconduct. Obasa rejected the allegations and challenged his removal.

He returned to the Speakership on March 3, 2025, after Meranda resigned from the position. Reports at the time linked the resolution of the crisis to interventions by President Bola Tinubu and senior APC leaders.

The legal dimension of the dispute subsequently took another turn when the Lagos High Court in Ikeja ruled in April 2025 that the process through which Obasa was removed was unlawful and nullified the proceedings leading to his ouster.

With Obasa now heading for the National Assembly, the latest Agege ticket controversy presents a different political test: can the political network that has sustained his influence in the constituency remain cohesive when individual ambitions collide with party decisions?

For the APC, the APM defections also create an uncomfortable question ahead of 2027: whether the decision to replace the initial Agege Assembly candidates will end with two defections or trigger further discontent within the constituency.

For the defectors, however, the move to the APM appears to signal that the fight for the Agege Assembly seats is far from over.

The real contest may now be shifting from the APC primary ground to the wider electorate and Agege could become one of the constituencies to watch as the 2027 political battle gathers momentum.