By Segun Olatunji
If you ever feel like your life is a bit disorganised, take solace in the fact that you are not running the Ogun State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). As the 2027 governorship race approaches, the main opposition party has elevated political comedy to an art form, featuring a spectacular blend of self-sabotage, mystical optimism, and a vanishing act that would make a combination of the iconic Hungarian-American escape artist, illusionist and stunt performer, Harry Houdini, and late Nigeria’s Professor Peller, both of who remain very famous magicians in history, green with envy.
*The Disappearing Act: Now You See LADO, Now You Don’t*
At the national level, the PDP is suffering from a prolonged existential identity crisis. But at the state level in Ogun, that crisis has crystallised into a very specific problem for the party’s perennial hopeful, Ladi Adebutu.
Just as the Adebutu camp was gearing up to print campaign posters, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) dropped its final governorship list on October 10, 2026. Lo and behold, the PDP flagbearer was completely missing from the ballot. While other political entities’ governorship candidates secured their slots, the column for the umbrella party was left entirely blank.
Predictably, the Adebutu campaign immediately pointed fingers at the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), alleging “undue pressure” and political witch-hunt. The APC, meanwhile, simply told the PDP to face its internal failures and stop treating the electoral umpire like a scapegoat.
*Enter Topa Peter: The Plot Thickens*
If being delisted by INEC wasn’t humiliating enough, Adebutu’s claim to the PDP ticket faced a spectacular challenge from within his own backyard. Enter Topa Olusegun Peter, a rival PDP aspirant who suddenly emerged from the woodwork with a team of lawyers in tow.
On October 14, 2026, Peter served INEC with a fiery 48-hour ultimatum demanding that his own name be published as the authentic PDP governorship candidate. His legal team boldly claimed that Peter bought the nomination forms, participated in the May 2026 primaries, and was entry number 15,783 on the party’s official register.
While Ladi Adebutu is busy fighting INEC to get his name on the ballot, he now has to fight off a party member trying to snatch the very ticket he is trying to salvage. It is the political equivalent of fighting for the captain’s hat on a ship that has already sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic.
*The Spiritual Strategy*
Confronted with the very real possibility of total exclusion from the election, how does the Adebutu campaign respond? With rigorous legal strategy? With rapid political reconciliation? Not quite. They went spiritual.
Following Jumat prayers at the Nawair-ud-deen mosque in Abeokuta on Friday, October 16, 2026, Adebutu’s running mate, Alhaja Yemi Sowunmi-Kolapo, dropped a masterpiece of political spin. She boldly proclaimed that the INEC exclusion was actually a “spiritual sign” that Adebutu is destined to be the next governor of Ogun State.
“We are going to vote, we will be voted in… and we will take our seats there,” she had previously cheered during her unveiling.
It takes a breathtaking amount of optimism to look at an official INEC document that literally omits your name and declare it a divine endorsement. If being completely disqualified is the new “spiritual indication” of victory, then millions of unregistered Nigerians must also be on the verge of claiming the keys to Oke-Mosan.
*Meanwhile, on Planet Earth…*
While the PDP relies on divine intervention and internal ultimatums, the APC consensus candidate, Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola, popularly called Yayi, is operating on a completely different, stubbornly material plane of reality.
Known locally as “Mr. Project,” Senator Yayi has spent the better part of 2026 treating Ogun West and the wider state to an endless festival of ribbon-cutting. To mark his legislative milestones, Yayi unleashed a massive wave of 53 infrastructure projects spanning roads, primary healthcare centres, markets and schools. Just over the weekend, he delivered a state-of-the-art Area Command Police Station and modern power facilities in Imeko-Afon.
Yayi isn’t praying for signs; he is laying asphalt, installing transformers, and building concrete structures across the state’s three senatorial districts. He has already laid out a comprehensive nine-point economic agenda tagged, “ITESIWAJU” and confidently pledged two million votes from Ogun State to secure the political landscape.
*Verdict: Can Adebutu Survive?*
For Ladi Adebutu to make even a minor dent in the 2027 election, he needs a sequence of miracles that would exhaust even the most patient deity.
• First, he must defeat the internal legal challenge mounted by Topa Peter.
• Second, he must successfully sue INEC into reversing its final list to get the PDP back on the ballot.
• Third, he has to unite a deeply fractured party structure that seems to enjoy fighting itself more than fighting the opposition.
Even if Adebutu somehow manages to resolve the INEC delisting fiasco, he will emerge bruised, broken and incredibly late to the campaign trail. Waiting for him at the finishing line is a well-oiled APC machinery led by a candidate who is quite literally building his way into the governor’s office project by project.
Unless the PDP’s “spiritual strategy” includes an invisible ballot box, Adebutu’s 2027 gubernatorial ambitions look less like a campaign and more like a tragicomedy.
Olatunji, a Journalist, Political/Crisis Communication Strategist, writes from Ilaro, Ogun State
