The latest decision by the Lagos State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to expel former Agege Local Government Chairman, Chief Ganiyu Kola Egunjobi, and Agege Constituency II politician, Barrister Azeez Oladapo Yusuf, popularly known as Ninolowo, has triggered a fresh wave of debate within political circles in Agege, with residents and supporters questioning why the party chose expulsion instead of reconciliation.
The controversy is coming against the backdrop of the bitter dispute that followed the APC House of Assembly primaries in Agege Constituencies I and II, where Egunjobi and Ninolowo were initially reported as winners. Contemporary reports from the May primary put Egunjobi at 12,455 votes and Ninolowo at 8,299 votes, before subsequent changes in the APC candidate list altered the political equation.
For many of those sympathetic to the two politicians, the latest expulsion does not resolve the original dispute; rather, they argue that it deepens the question of how the party handled the grievances that emerged after the primaries.
Their argument is straightforward: if two prominent politicians who participated in the party’s internal process subsequently complained about the outcome, why was a reconciliation meeting not convened before the relationship deteriorated to the point of defection and expulsion?
That position is consistent with the account given by Ninolowo and Egunjobi themselves. In their response to reports surrounding their defection, the duo said they had independently decided to leave APC after what they described as “grave injustice” and the failure of party leadership to initiate meaningful reconciliation or provide what they considered a satisfactory resolution to their complaints.
The APC, however, has presented a fundamentally different account. In announcing their expulsion on September 23, State Chairman Pastor Cornelius Ojelabi said the two had violated party rules by seeking tickets on another platform after the APC primaries. The party cited Article 9(5)(II) of its 2022 amended constitution and described their conduct as anti-party activity and disloyalty.
That official explanation has now become another subject of discussion in Agege.
Those questioning the expulsion argue that the sequence of events matters. In their view, the story did not begin with the APM tickets; it began with the unresolved controversy surrounding the APC nomination process. They contend that a political party seeking cohesion ahead of a major election should have exhausted reconciliation and dialogue before resorting to the ultimate disciplinary measure of expulsion.
The dispute is particularly significant because Ninolowo and Egunjobi did not emerge from the APC process as unknown aspirants. Both had contested the party’s Assembly primaries and were subsequently announced as APM candidates for Agege Constituencies II and I respectively. Reports confirm that Ninolowo secured the APM ticket for Constituency II while Egunjobi emerged for Constituency I.
The development has therefore transformed what started as an internal APC nomination controversy into a wider electoral contest in Agege.
For Ninolowo’s supporters, the central issue is now bigger than the APC platform. They see the APM candidacy as the continuation of a political journey that began with his attempt to secure the APC ticket and subsequently moved outside the party after the disputed nomination process.
The same narrative has been advanced around Egunjobi, whose political experience as a former chairman of Agege Local Government has given the wider controversy another layer. The two men have also rejected suggestions that their decision to join APM was orchestrated by Lagos Assembly Speaker Mudashiru Obasa, insisting that the decision was theirs and followed their experiences within APC.
However, the emerging political conversation in Agege appears to be taking an unusual form: some residents and political actors who remain favourably disposed toward the national and state APC structure say their support for candidates at other levels should not necessarily determine their choice in the House of Assembly race.
In the account presented by supporters of the Ninolowo movement, the emerging sentiment is that voters can distinguish between different electoral contests supporting President Bola Ahmed Tinubu at the presidential level, Governor-designate candidate Dr. Kadri Obafemi Hamzat at the Lagos governorship level, Senator Idiat Adebule for the Senate and Hon. Mudashiru Ajayi Obasa for the House of Representatives, while supporting Ninolowo under the APM banner for the State Assembly.
That position should, however, be understood as a political claim by Ninolowo’s supporters rather than an independently established voting pattern across Agege. Indeed, APC stakeholders in the constituency have publicly expressed the opposite view, saying the defections of Ninolowo and Egunjobi would not weaken the party’s structure and pledging to mobilise votes for APC candidates across the ballot.
The contrast illustrates the unusual nature of the Agege contest. Rather than presenting itself simply as a contest between two parties, the Assembly race is increasingly being discussed in terms of individual candidates, their political histories, grassroots relationships and the unresolved memories of the APC primary controversy.
For the APC, the challenge is to defend its decision as an issue of party discipline. For Ninolowo and his supporters, the argument is that the controversy should be viewed through the lens of the mandate they say was obtained during the original primary and the subsequent failure of reconciliation.
That is where the politics of Agege becomes particularly interesting.
The APC has insisted that party members who lose nomination contests must accept the outcome or pursue available internal and legal avenues rather than contest against the party on another platform. Ninolowo and Egunjobi, on the other hand, maintain that they explored avenues for redress and were dissatisfied with the response they received.
The disagreement has now moved beyond the walls of the APC secretariat and into the electorate.
As 2027 approaches, Agege Constituency II voters will be confronted with a contest involving Ninolowo on the APM platform and Enimakure Akindele Sakiru on the APC platform. The political question will be whether the unresolved APC primary controversy remains influential among voters or whether the party can successfully move beyond it through its existing campaign structure.
What is already clear is that the expulsion has not ended the Agege controversy. Instead, it has added another chapter to it.
The question being raised by those sympathetic to Ninolowo is no longer simply why he left APC. It is why a dispute that began inside the party could not be resolved through dialogue before it culminated in expulsion.
With both sides now preparing for the electorate, the answer may ultimately be sought not in party statements, but in the political choices made by the people of Agege Constituency II at the ballot box in 2027.