Former Ogun Central Senator cites neglect and disillusionment in PDP as she joins APC, declares intention to run for Ogun governorship in 2027.

Prof. Iyabo Obasanjo, daughter of former President Olusegun Obasanjo and a former senator for Ogun Central, has opened up about her defection from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), calling it a deeply personal choice driven by frustration, neglect, and disillusionment within her former party.

In a candid interview on Wednesday with Frontline, a current affairs programme on Eagle 102.5 FM in Ilese Ijebu, the former Ogun State Commissioner for Health emphasized that her decision was entirely her own.

“APC never approached me,” Obasanjo said firmly. “I analyzed the situation, and the primary reason I left PDP was that I wasn’t comfortable in the party.”

She explained that she had previously delayed leaving PDP out of loyalty to her father, who was then a key party figure. “I could have joined the other party earlier, but my dad was still a chieftain. It would have felt like going against him. Now he doesn’t belong to any party—he tore his card—and I’m a free agent,” she said.

Obasanjo recounted experiences of being sidelined within the PDP, describing party outreach as transactional and limited to election periods. “I was a senator, I knew the followership I had… and then, just before elections, someone from the presidency reached out. How transactional is that?” she recalled, noting that she abruptly ended such calls.

Her disappointment extended to some PDP leaders personally. “I don’t know if I feel betrayed; I just feel the individuals there are not people I want to associate with. I think they’re idiots, if you can put it that way,” she stressed. “If elections are about people, and you don’t reach out to prominent figures in your party, how do you win? You can’t.”

Obasanjo also highlighted that genuine politics must prioritize people. “If you can’t care for your own leadership team, how can you care for the ordinary person on the street?” she asked.

After losing her senatorial re-election bid in 2011 to Senator Gbenga Obadara of the then Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Obasanjo returned to the United States to focus on her academic career, eventually attaining the rank of professor.

Following a 15-year hiatus from active politics, she officially joined the APC via its e-registration platform in Ibogun, Ward 11, Ifo Local Government Area of Ogun State, ahead of the 2027 general elections.

Obasanjo has now declared her intention to contest the Ogun State governorship under the APC banner, expressing confidence in securing the party ticket and positioning herself as a candidate committed to service rather than opportunism.