There is a troubling irony emerging within the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) in Ibarapa: the party may be winning tickets while gradually losing the people and political structures needed to win elections.
Across Ibarapa North, Central and East, different signs of internal tension are beginning to raise questions about the party's ability to manage succession, ambition and loyalty ahead of the December 2026 local government elections and the 2027 general elections.
In Ibarapa North, the controversy surrounding the chairmanship ticket has raised questions about generational renewal and internal consultation. Reports indicate that Hon. Peter Gbadegesin Ojedokun, a long-serving politician in his seventies, has emerged as the chairmanship candidate, while a running mate in his late sixties has also been mentioned. This is against the backdrop of a much younger incumbent completing his second term.
The issue is not that older politicians cannot lead. Experience matters. But Ibarapa must also ask: when will the younger generation be given a genuine pathway to leadership? The bigger concern, however, is the process.
Reports had earlier indicated that seven of ten stakeholders in Ibarapa North supported the incumbent Vice Chairman, Bisi Akande, before the eventual emergence of another candidate. When stakeholders feel their position has been ignored, a party may secure a candidate while losing the enthusiasm of those expected to deliver the candidate's victory.
Ibarapa Central presents another potential fault line. Reports of competing councillorship interests and dissatisfaction among some serving councillors raise a simple but dangerous question: if continuity is acceptable for the chairman, why should it not be acceptable for councillors?
That question is bigger than individual ambition. It is about trust. A disappointed politician does not always defect. Sometimes he simply stops working. He stops mobilising, stops contributing and waits. In grassroots politics, silence can be more dangerous than defection.
APM's wider internal dispute is already before the courts, with 384 candidates reportedly challenging moves concerning fresh primaries. That is not merely an electoral disagreement; it is a warning about institutional trust. APM must therefore ask itself a difficult question: Is it winning the ticket, or winning the party? Because the two are not the same.
A candidate can win a primary and lose the support of those who should campaign for him. A chairman can secure a nomination and inherit councillors who feel betrayed. A party can produce candidates while quietly destroying the grassroots machinery required to elect them.
The local government election is not an isolated contest. The people mobilised for December 2026 will be the same grassroots actors needed for the general elections only months later.
If today's aggrieved aspirants and councillors decide tomorrow to stay aloof, APM may discover that the greatest threat to its 2027 ambitions did not come from another political party.
Oyo's political history should also provide caution. The dissolution of elected local government councils in 2019 eventually became a major legal battle, with the Supreme Court ruling in 2021 that the dissolution was unconstitutional. The lesson is not that a future governor will necessarily remove APM councils, but that local government mandates can become vulnerable when political transitions turn into legal and constitutional battles.
Those seeking office should therefore ask not only, “Can I win?” They should ask, “Can my party remain united enough to protect the mandate after I win?”
The answer is not to silence dissent, impose candidates or assume that a nomination automatically produces loyalty. It is reconciliation. It is fairness. It is transparent succession. It is giving the younger generation a credible path into leadership while respecting the experience of those who came before them.
A political party cannot permanently postpone succession without eventually creating a succession crisis. APM's real test in Ibarapa is therefore not who wins the tickets. It is whether the party can remain united after the tickets have been won. Because in politics, you can win the ticket and lose the party.
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