By Abiodun Ondofoi

There is something deeply troubling about a man who has spent seven years governing a state and still cannot trust the democratic process to validate his next ambition. That, in essence, is the Dapo Abiodun story unfolding in Ogun East today.

As the All Progressives Congress prepares to conduct its senatorial primaries, what should ordinarily be a straightforward exercise in internal party democracy has degenerated into a theatre of intimidation, coercion, and orchestrated chaos. The reports filtering out of Ogun East in the past 24 hours are not the hallmarks of a confident politician seeking a mandate. They are the desperate manoeuvres of a man who knows he cannot win on merit.

Let us be clear about what is happening here. Dapo Abiodun is not simply seeking a senatorial ticket. He is attempting to colonise a senatorial district the same way he colonised the Governor’s office, by force of leverage, patronage, and the kind of political thuggery that thrives where party leadership looks the other way. The allegations of violence being planned against supporters of Senator Otunba Gbenga Daniel are not mere political noise. They are consistent with a pattern of imposition that has defined this governor’s relationship with democratic competition throughout his tenure.

What makes this moment particularly significant is what OGD’s campaign organisation has chosen to do. Faced with credible intelligence of looming violence and thuggery being mobilised by elements loyal to the governor, the Daniel campaign has advised his supporters to stay away from tomorrow’s primary. Let no one misread this as withdrawal or defeat. Senator Daniel remains firmly in this contest. What his organisation has done is refuse to offer up the lives of ordinary party members as collateral in an ambition that is not theirs to fund with their blood.

That is not political weakness. That is political wisdom of the highest order.

A campaign that tells its people “your safety matters more than tomorrow’s ballot” is a campaign rooted in genuine regard for human dignity. It also fires a direct accusation at the process itself. By withdrawing supporters from a primary it considers unsafe, the Daniel campaign is on record stating that what will happen tomorrow in Ogun East is not a legitimate election. It is a performance. A selection dressed in the costume of a primary. And when the results emerge, as they inevitably will, in favour of the man who emptied the field through fear, that verdict will carry the moral weight of a forgery.

But we cannot allow OGD’s principled stance to serve as cover for the institutional rot that made it necessary.

The APC leadership in Ogun State has been inexcusably silent. The state executive of a party that prides itself on democratic values has watched a sitting governor systematically subvert the will of party members, weaponise government machinery against an internal opponent, and now apparently greenlight violence on the eve of a primary. Not a word of caution. Not a single intervention. That silence is not neutrality. It is complicity.

This is the moment the National Working Committee of the APC must demonstrate that the party is larger than any one individual, regardless of the office he currently occupies. The NWC must understand that what is playing out in Ogun East today is not an isolated state matter. It is a test of the party’s institutional credibility ahead of 2027. If a governor can brazenly attempt to annex a senatorial district by force, manipulate a primary through intimidation and imposition, and face zero consequence from the national leadership, then the party’s internal democracy is nothing more than a performance staged for public consumption.

The NWC must move, and move now. Not tomorrow when ballots have already been compromised. Not next week when the damage has calcified into fait accompli. Now.

Dapo Abiodun’s eight years in Oke-Mosan should have been enough. Ogun State residents know his record, or more precisely, they know the gap between his promises and his performance. The roads, the industries, the governance deficits of his tenure are a matter of public record. That a man with such a record believes he is entitled to walk into the Senate on the ruins of a superior senator’s legacy is an insult to the people of Ogun East.

Ogun East is not Dapo Abiodun’s inheritance. It is not compensation for a governorship that underdelivered. It is a senatorial district with a sitting senator whose record of constituency engagement, legislative output, and grassroots connection speaks for itself. And that senator is still standing.

The party must now choose what it stands for. If the NWC allows this primary to proceed under the shadow of violence and imposition without urgent intervention, it will have answered that question with unmistakable clarity. And the people of Ogun East will remember that answer in 2027.

Democracy does not negotiate with the barrel of a gun. Neither should the APC.