Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, daughter of former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, has been confirmed as the Peoples Democratic Party’s senatorial candidate for Ogun Central, days after walking away from the ruling All Progressives Congress in a dispute over what she called disrespectful treatment by its leadership.
The handover took place on Wednesday at the PDP secretariat in Abeokuta, capital of Ogun state, where the atmosphere was closer to street festival than political ceremony. Obasanjo-Bello was paraded through the city’s main thoroughfares alongside Ladi Adebutu, the party’s candidate for governor, before crowds of supporters who had turned out to mark her return.
At the secretariat, the state party chairman, Abayomi Tella, handed her the PDP flag confirming her candidature for the 2027 elections, a Senate seat she has set her sights on regaining.
“I, Dr Abayomi Tella, the state chairman of the PDP, and on behalf of PDP Ogun Central, present to our revered sister, Prof Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, this flag as the authority of the party for her candidature for the Senate in Ogun Central,” he told the gathering, speaking on behalf of the party’s national leadership.
Obasanjo-Bello, 59, then took the party oath, promising to serve “the people of Ogun State and Nigeria with integrity, humility and dedication”, placing their welfare above personal or factional interests.
Her departure from the APC, formalised in a resignation letter to the party’s state chairman dated 31 May, followed months of what she described as marginalisation. She told the crowd she had been made to feel infantilised by a party she joined less than a year ago.
“The APC treated me like a child, whereas I will be 60 years old by the grace of God next year,” she said.
She had returned to frontline politics in January after two decades away, registering with the APC in her home ward in Ifo local government area. The decision, she explained, had been shaped largely by the warmth shown to her by President Bola Tinubu.
“The President always treated me like his daughter, so I thought joining his party would not be a bad idea. Yoruba people cherish honour and respect; it is not about money,” she said.
That goodwill, she said, did not translate into influence within the party machinery. She claimed her objections to how the APC handled internal consensus-building and candidate selection went unheeded, and that she was ultimately frozen out altogether, despite a record that included four years as Ogun state’s health commissioner and a term as senator for Ogun Central between 2007 and 2011.
She suggested the slight stung more given who delivered it. The betrayal, she said, came from people she had personally supported and uplifted in the past.
Obasanjo-Bello struck a confident note about her prospects in the upcoming poll, calling herself the best-placed candidate to represent Ogun Central in the Senate.
She left Nigeria for the United States in 2011 after losing her bid for re-election, staying largely outside public life until billboards bearing her image began reappearing around Abeokuta late last year, hinting at the political comeback now under way.
Adebutu, addressing the same rally, used the platform to set out pledges of his own should he win the governorship: full financial autonomy for local governments and stricter oversight of public spending.
“Our parents have taught us well, and I want to assure you that we will not steal public funds,” he said, adding that councils would receive their allocations in full and that his administration would operate with transparency.
