If there must be a political loss in the nearest future for whatever milestone the All Progressives Congress (APC) hopes to achieve in Oyo State, perhaps the error is already being made now.
The irony is difficult to ignore.
Nigeria’s new Electoral Act 2026, signed into law by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on February 18, 2026, introduced important changes to the way political parties nominate candidates. Under Section 84, nomination is now through direct primaries or consensus, while Section 87 specifically places a major condition on the consensus option: all cleared aspirants must give written consent, voluntarily withdrawing from the race and endorsing the consensus candidate. If that consent cannot be secured, the law requires the party to revert to direct primaries.
That provision is significant because it gives aspirants a clear legal opportunity to reject a consensus arrangement they do not voluntarily accept.
And this is where the APC’s situation in Oyo State becomes particularly interesting.
The party reportedly fixed its governorship nomination forms at ₦50 million, with the 2027 governorship primary scheduled for May 23, 2026. Several aspirants therefore entered the contest under a process that, at least legally, should give them a meaningful voice in determining who eventually becomes the party’s standard-bearer.
Yet, even before the primary, APC leaders and stakeholders in Oyo publicly adopted Senator Sharafadeen Alli as their preferred consensus candidate. Reports at the time said party leaders described the decision as the product of consultations and also linked it to an endorsement from the national leadership.
The problem, however, is simple: consensus under the new law is not merely a declaration by party leaders. It requires the written consent of all cleared aspirants.
That distinction matters.
Following the May 22 governorship primary, confusion also surrounded the actual result. The Oyo APC publicity secretary, Wasiu Sadare, publicly dismissed circulating figures as fake and said no official result had yet been announced, insisting that the national secretariat was responsible for announcing the final figures.
Interestingly, reports subsequently emerged congratulating Alli as the winner of the direct primary, while the party later moved to formally unveil him as its 2027 governorship candidate in July.
This raises an important political question: if the primary produced a winner, why was there such uncertainty over the official result in the first place?
If Senator Sharafadeen Alli won the primary, then the cleanest political response should have been to publish the official result, show the process was transparent and allow every aspirant and party member to see how the mandate was obtained.
Instead, the sequence of consensus declarations, primary proceedings, uncertainty over results and eventual unveiling has created room for suspicion and resentment.
The APC cannot afford to underestimate the political consequences.
A party can win an election outside its walls while simultaneously losing the confidence of people inside it. Internal democracy is not merely about producing a candidate; it is also about ensuring that those who contested against the eventual winner believe the process was fair enough to accept the outcome.
If the party’s own aspirants feel ignored, imposed upon or denied a transparent process, reconciliation becomes much harder.
And that is the real warning for Oyo APC.
The 2027 election is still ahead. There is time to correct mistakes, address grievances, publish what needs to be published, reconcile aggrieved aspirants and demonstrate that the same law the party supported and signed into effect applies equally to everyone.
Otherwise, what begins today as an internal disagreement could become tomorrow’s political division.
APC may have secured its candidate, but the bigger question is whether it has secured the unity required to win Oyo State.
The answer may depend on what the party does next.
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