Oyo APC: Faith, Action and Solidarity as the Pathway to Victory | Timilehin Kolade
Political parties do not win elections simply because they possess influential personalities, experienced politicians or impressive campaign structures. Elections are won when political organisations successfully convert belief into action, action into organisation, and organisation into votes. For the Oyo State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the pathway to the 2027 governorship election must therefore be built around three indispensable principles: faith, action and solidarity. Faith creates conviction, action gives conviction practical expression, while solidarity transforms individual political interests into a collective electoral force.
Oyo’s political history provides compelling evidence that electoral victory is never permanently owned by any political party or individual. The state’s political landscape has repeatedly changed hands, demonstrating the fluidity of voter preferences and the importance of political organisation. In 1999, Chief Lam Adesina of the Alliance for Democracy emerged as governor, representing the strength of the progressive tradition in the state. Four years later, however, Rashidi Ladoja of the Peoples Democratic Party displaced the incumbent progressive administration. The lesson is enduring: political dominance is never self-perpetuating. It must constantly be renewed through organisation, performance, coalition-building and connection with the electorate.
The emergence of Senator Abiola Ajimobi in 2011 offers another instructive chapter. Running on the platform of the Action Congress of Nigeria, Ajimobi defeated an incumbent administration and subsequently became the first governor in Oyo State to win re-election. His victory in 2015, against formidable opponents including Rashidi Ladoja and Adebayo Alao-Akala, demonstrated that political history can be rewritten when organisation, alliances, messaging and electoral strategy converge. Yet the APC’s defeat in 2019 also provides an important warning. After eight years in government, the party lost the governorship to Seyi Makinde. Whatever interpretation one gives that election, the larger lesson remains that no political party can take its internal cohesion or electoral support for granted.
This is where faith becomes important. Faith in politics is not blind optimism. It is the collective conviction that victory is possible and that the political project is worth sacrificing for. A party whose members have lost faith in one another cannot convincingly ask the electorate to have faith in it. Oyo APC must therefore rebuild confidence among its members, particularly those who have experienced disappointment, exclusion or defeat in previous political contests. The party must communicate a larger purpose capable of making individual actors see beyond the immediate consequences of their personal political experiences.
But faith without action is merely political wishful thinking. The history of successful political movements demonstrates that electoral victories are built through painstaking organisation. The ward, local government and polling-unit structures remain more important than political theatrics. The party must know its voters, understand their concerns, identify opinion leaders and cultivate relationships long before the ballot is cast. It must distinguish between social-media visibility and genuine grassroots influence. A thousand online endorsements cannot replace a properly organised polling unit on election day.
The progressive tradition associated with Chief Obafemi Awolowo offers an instructive historical reference. Whatever debates surround his politics, one fact is difficult to dispute: his political movement was sustained by organisation, ideological clarity, communication and an extensive network of committed party workers. Awolowo understood that political movements are not sustained by leaders alone; they require institutions and people who believe sufficiently in the project to work for it. Oyo APC must recover this organisational seriousness. The party’s ambition for 2027 cannot be reduced to rallies, posters, media appearances and occasional elite meetings. It must become a sustained political operation.
The third pillar, solidarity, may ultimately determine whether faith and action produce victory. Political parties are coalitions of competing interests, personalities and ambitions. Internal differences are therefore not necessarily a weakness. The danger begins when disagreement becomes permanent hostility and factional interest becomes more important than the survival of the party. Oyo APC must consciously reject the politics of permanent winners and permanent losers. A primary election should determine who carries the flag; it should not determine who belongs to the political family.
The principle of No Victor, No Vanquished must consequently become more than a familiar political expression. Those who win must understand that victory creates responsibility rather than unlimited entitlement. Those who lose must understand that losing a primary does not amount to political death. The winner needs the structure, relationships and followers of the defeated; the defeated needs the platform and collective strength of the winner. Their political interests converge in the larger contest.
This is particularly important because Oyo is not politically homogeneous. Ibadan is not Oke-Ogun; Oke-Ogun is not Ogbomoso; Ibarapa is not Oyo; and the political calculations of urban voters cannot simply be imposed on rural communities. A successful APC campaign must therefore understand the different political ecologies of the state. The party requires a statewide coalition capable of connecting different geographical, social and political constituencies without losing a coherent message.
This requires a politics of connection before communication. The electorate must first be understood before it can be persuaded. Campaign communication should not simply tell citizens what the party wants them to hear; it should begin by listening to what citizens are already saying. Traders have their anxieties. Farmers have theirs. Young people, civil servants, artisans, professionals and traditional institutions all possess different concerns. Political sophistication lies in identifying these concerns and constructing a narrative that connects them to the larger political proposition.
The media component of the campaign must consequently move beyond publicity to political communication. Projection without connection is insufficient. A candidate may receive extensive media coverage and still fail to create emotional or intellectual resonance with voters. The central question should not merely be, How much publicity are we generating? It should be, What are voters taking away from our message? Political communication becomes effective when the candidate’s biography, experience and political proposition are translated into something voters can recognise as relevant to their own lives.
Oyo APC must also resist the dangerous temptation to confuse political noise with political strength. Political power is not measured by who dominates social media conversations or who can command the largest crowd at a rally. Electoral politics is an exercise in aggregation. The party must identify where votes are located, where persuasion is possible, where alliances can be built and where existing support must be defended. Political maturity requires understanding the difference between being visible and being effective.
There is also a lesson in the history of the APC itself. The party was born from the realisation that fragmented opposition could not effectively challenge a dominant political establishment. The merger that produced the APC was therefore an exercise in political aggregation. The same logic must now operate within the Oyo chapter. The party must aggregate its personalities, structures, resources, relationships and political experiences rather than allowing them to remain trapped within competing factions.
The objective should not be to create artificial unanimity. Political parties are not churches, and disagreement is inevitable. The objective should be to develop a culture in which disagreements do not destroy the collective enterprise. There must be room for argument, negotiation, reconciliation and strategic compromise. A mature political organisation does not eliminate differences; it develops institutions and political wisdom capable of managing them.
For Oyo APC, 2027 should therefore not be approached with either complacency or despair. The party should neither romanticise its past victories nor remain psychologically imprisoned by its previous defeat. The victory of 2011 is history; the defeat of 2019 is also history. Both contain lessons. The purpose of political memory is not nostalgia but learning.
The party’s greatest challenge is consequently not a shortage of politicians. Oyo APC has many experienced and influential actors. The real challenge is transforming individual influence into collective political capacity. It is transforming political capital into electoral capital, personal networks into party networks and individual ambition into a shared political project.
Faith must create the conviction. Action must create the structure. Solidarity must create the coalition.
That is the pathway.
The road to Agodi will not be secured by the loudest faction, the most intimidating personality or the most elaborate political slogan. It will be secured by a party capable of healing its internal wounds, organising its structures, connecting with voters and persuading citizens that its return to government represents a credible alternative.
Oyo APC does not need the delusion of invincibility. It needs the discipline of preparation. It does not need everyone to think alike; it needs everyone to understand the larger objective. It does not need to erase political differences; it needs to prevent those differences from becoming instruments of collective destruction.
The political pendulum in Oyo has moved before, and it will move again. The question is not whether it will move, but whether Oyo APC will be sufficiently united, organised and connected when it does.
Faith. Action. Solidarity. These are not merely words. They are the political infrastructure of victory.