2027: How AbdulRazaq-Mustapha power battle tore Kwara APC apart

The political rift between Kwara State Governor, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, and the senator representing Kwara Central, Saliu Mustapha, did not begin with the latter’s eventual exit from the All Progressives Congress.

Neither did it start on the day the party’s governorship primary produced the Speaker of the Kwara State House of Assembly, Yakubu Danladi-Salihu, as its candidate for the 2027 election.

But the primary, held on May 22, 2026, appears to have become the defining moment in a disagreement that had been building quietly within the ruling party and has now spilled into the open, reshaping political alliances and raising fresh questions about the future of the APC in Kwara State.

The gov battle

For months, Mustapha, who is also the Turaki of Ilorin Emirate, was regarded as one of the major political figures eyeing the governorship seat that will become vacant when AbdulRazaq completes his second term on May 29, 2027.

His camp maintained that his ambition was not primarily about returning to the National Assembly. According to Mustapha’s Executive Assistant, Abdulkareem Alabi, the senator had set his sights on succeeding AbdulRazaq at the Government House in Ilorin.

“What the senator wanted was the governorship ticket, nothing more, nothing less,” Alabi told The PUNCH.

The succession contest that followed was among the most competitive within the Kwara APC in recent years. The governorship primary was conducted across the state’s 193 wards on May 22, after an earlier postponement attributed by party officials to logistical challenges.

At the end of the exercise, Danladi-Salihu emerged as the APC governorship candidate after polling 94,990 votes. He defeated Yahaya Seriki, who scored 41,700 votes, while a former state APC chairman, Bashir Bolarinwa, came third with 22,118 votes.

Other aspirants included Femi Sanni, Ibrahim Oloriegbe, Dele Belgore, Mohammed Bio, Alabi Oluwatoyin, Abubakar Suleiman and Wale Suleiman, according to results announced by the chairman of the APC Governorship Primary Election Committee, Musiliu Obanikoro.

The exercise, however, was followed by controversy, with some aspirants and stakeholders calling for a review of the process.

Among those dissatisfied with developments that followed was Mustapha, whose political calculation had changed dramatically.

Mustapha’s gov ambition

Mustapha’s camp insists that his name was unexpectedly associated with the Kwara Central senatorial primary while his attention remained focused on the governorship race.

Alabi said the senator had consulted widely before the primary and believed he had sufficient political backing to pursue the ticket.

“He had declared his moral and financial readiness to contest in that capacity, given his sacrifices to the APC in Kwara State, his investments as a founding stakeholder in the party and his wealth of experience,” Alabi said.

He added that Mustapha had undertaken consultations at the national and local levels and received what his camp considered a green light, including from the Presidency.

However, as the party prepared for its primaries, the senator’s camp said it began receiving reports that Mustapha had been listed among aspirants seeking to retain his Kwara Central Senate seat.The development, Alabi claimed, came as a surprise.

“On the morning of the National Assembly primary, we began hearing rumours that the senator’s name had appeared on the list of aspirants seeking re-election to the Senate,” he said. “Even the senator himself was unaware that his name had been included on the list.”

Alabi maintained that Mustapha had not abandoned his governorship ambition and had only submitted an expression of interest relating to the governorship contest.

“The rumour was false and unfounded because he had only indicated interest in and submitted a letter for the governorship position up until the morning of the National Assembly primaries,” he said.

**The primary that changed everything **

The May 22 governorship primary became more than a routine internal election.

It produced a candidate from Kwara North, a district that has never produced an elected governor and whose political leaders had intensified calls for power to rotate to the region after AbdulRazaq’s eight-year tenure.

Danladi-Salihu’s emergence was also remarkable because political calculations had appeared to favour Seriki in the days preceding the primary, with some aspirants reportedly stepping down and expressing support for him.

But when the votes were announced, the Speaker emerged with a margin of more than 53,000 votes over Seriki, immediately altering the succession equation within the party.

For Mustapha and his supporters, however, the outcome was only one layer of a deeper disagreement.

Alabi alleged that AbdulRazaq had opposed Mustapha’s bid to succeed him and claimed that national stakeholders later explained to the senator’s camp why his name appeared among those seeking the Kwara Central senatorial ticket.

“After extensive consultations and the green light he had received, they learned that President Bola Tinubu had a special interest in the senator succeeding Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq,” Alabi alleged.

He further claimed that the governor opposed the possibility of Mustapha becoming his successor.

“For reasons best known to the governor, after Tinubu indicated an interest in the senator, we learned that the governor insisted that Mustapha could only become his successor over his dead body,” Alabi alleged.

However, Alabi’s allegations could not be independently verified by our correspondent.

The governor’s camp also denied responsibility for Mustapha’s failure to secure the governorship ticket.

Responding to the earlier allegations, the Senior Special Assistant on Communications to the Governor, Ibraheem Abdullateef, said it was incorrect to claim that AbdulRazaq took the ticket from Mustapha.

“The truth is that it was President Tinubu who denied him the governorship ticket,” Abdullateef said.

He also rejected allegations that AbdulRazaq blocked Mustapha’s telephone line or frustrated reconciliation efforts between the two men.

“Mallam Saliu Mustapha and the governor interact frequently,” Abdullateef said. “The claim that the governor blocked his line after attending a reconciliation meeting chaired by the Emir and the late Chief Imam is false.”

Abdullateef further alleged that Mustapha’s political calculations contributed to his failure to secure the ticket.

“The senator is largely responsible for losing the ticket,” he said. “This was because he told the President that he had reached an agreement with the governor to swap positions.”

Tracing the roots

Mustapha’s camp has, however, traced the disagreement to a period before the 2027 succession battle.

According to Alabi, the tension began after the 2023 general elections and involved former Senate President Bukola Saraki’s attendance at the Eid praying ground in Ilorin.

“From my perspective, the problem started sometime in 2023, after the election that brought the senator into office,” Alabi said.

He alleged that Mustapha was approached and asked to occupy a seat designated for Saraki at the Eid ground, an offer he said the senator rejected.

According to Alabi, the disagreement deepened despite interventions by prominent personalities in the Ilorin Emirate.

He alleged that the Emir of Ilorin, Alhaji Ibrahim Sulu-Gambari, initiated a reconciliation effort through a committee led by the late Chief Imam of Ilorin, Bashir Mohammed Solih.

“The governor later blocked the senator’s phone number, thereby frustrating the peace effort,” Alabi alleged.

The governor’s camp rejected that account.

Crisis within APC

Beyond the conflicting narratives surrounding the origin of the feud, its political consequences became increasingly visible after the primaries.

Some governorship aspirants and party stakeholders challenged the process that produced Danladi-Salihu, while the state’s three APC senators, including Mustapha, Oyelola Ashiru and Sadiq Umar, later called for a review of aspects of the primaries and urgent reconciliation within the party.

The APC leadership, however, insisted that the exercise was validly conducted and that Danladi-Salihu was the duly elected candidate.

The party maintained that the primary was supervised by a committee sent from the national secretariat and that the Speaker’s emergence followed its guidelines.

Danladi-Salihu was subsequently presented with his nomination form despite continuing objections from a coalition of aggrieved aspirants and stakeholders.

For Mustapha’s camp, the dispute was not limited to the governorship ticket.

Alabi alleged that loyalists of the senator were gradually being excluded from party structures.

“We, the loyalists, have faced a great deal of persecution within the party,” he said. “Across the state, they removed all those loyal to the senator from the state congress executive board.”

He also linked the political disagreement to the alleged loss of road projects valued at more than N20bn in Kwara Central.

“Amid the crisis, we have lost projects worth more than N20bn in the Kwara Central Senatorial District,” Alabi alleged. “In 2024 alone, we lost about N14bn worth of road projects in the district.”

According to him, the proposed projects were expected to cover roads across the 52 wards in the senatorial district after consultations with local party leaders and stakeholders, but were later halted.

“After the road construction was approved, we later learned that an order from above had stopped the projects from going ahead,” he alleged.

Pressure to leave

As the internal crisis persisted, speculation grew over Mustapha’s future in the APC.

Initially, his aide insisted that the senator had no immediate plan to leave the party, describing him as a founding stakeholder whose political history had remained within the progressive fold.

“If the decision were left entirely to the senator, as a founding stakeholder of the APC, his mind would not leave the party,” Alabi said. “From the ANPP and CPC to the APC, his political trajectory has been very clear.”

But Mustapha’s supporters appeared to have reached a different conclusion.

“We, his overwhelming supporters, are already tired of the party, and we are mounting pressure on him to defect because we no longer have anything to do with the APC,” Alabi said.

The pressure eventually culminated in Mustapha’s resignation from the APC in August.

He subsequently moved to the Peoples Democratic Party and emerged as the party’s candidate for the Kwara Central Senatorial District, setting up a potentially dramatic contest with AbdulRazaq, who is seeking to move from the Government House to the Senate after the expiration of his second term.

From allies to rivals

The senator has since expressed confidence that he can defeat the governor.

Asked during an appearance on Channels Television whether he could overcome AbdulRazaq in the Kwara Central Senate contest, Mustapha replied, “I will defeat him before 12 noon.”

The senator’s departure from the APC triggered a wave of resignations within Gambari Ward 1 in Ilorin East Local Government Area, where the ward chairman, secretary and 10 other executive members announced their exit from the APC.

The development transformed what once appeared to be a disagreement between two powerful figures into a broader political realignment.

Mustapha’s exit has handed the PDP a serving senator and potentially strengthened the opposition’s position in Kwara Central.

For the APC, the challenge is now broader than managing the fallout from a disputed primary. The party must confront the consequences of losing one of its prominent stakeholders while preparing for the governorship election.

The senator’s camp insists that the disagreement was fuelled by attempts to weaken him politically and deny him a meaningful place within the APC.

“We realised that Governor AbdulRazaq’s intention was to neutralise him politically,” Alabi alleged. “It is no longer about contesting for positions; it is about erasing his name from the memories of the people.”

The governor’s camp, however, has consistently rejected claims that AbdulRazaq orchestrated Mustapha’s political setbacks.

Centres of political gravity

An Ilorin-based public affairs analyst, Abdulrasaq Olanrewaju, said the disagreement had gone beyond a personal dispute and reflected a struggle over political influence, succession and control of the APC ahead of 2027.

“The differences between Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq and Senator Saliu Mustapha are bigger than a personal disagreement,” Olanrewaju said. “At their core are political influence, succession and control of the APC structure ahead of 2027.”

According to him, both men had developed different sources of influence, creating competing power centres within the party.

“AbdulRazaq has the advantage of incumbency and institutional power, while Mustapha has built his own grassroots network and political following,” he said. “That creates two centres of gravity within one party, and politics rarely allows two suns to share the same sky.”

Olanrewaju said Mustapha’s move to the PDP had further altered political calculations, particularly in Kwara Central, where the senator will face AbdulRazaq.

However, he cautioned against assuming that all of Mustapha’s supporters within the APC would automatically move with him.

“Mustapha’s move to the PDP changes the equation, especially in Kwara Central, but it would be wrong to assume that every APC supporter will follow him,” he said. “Political structures are not luggage that can simply be carried from one party to another.”

According to the analyst, the APC’s greatest danger ahead of the 2027 elections may be its ability to manage the divisions that have emerged within its ranks.

“If its factions remain unreconciled, the PDP may not even need to defeat the party; the APC could weaken itself from within,” he said.

“At the same time, Mustapha must prove that his personal network can translate into a wider coalition and, ultimately, actual votes.”

The battle ahead

With Mustapha now outside the APC and on course for a direct political battle with AbdulRazaq in Kwara Central, the dispute has entered an entirely different phase.

The May 22 primary may have settled the APC’s governorship ticket, at least officially, but it did not settle the deeper contest over influence, succession and control within Kwara politics.

Instead, it exposed fault lines that have widened into one of the most consequential political crises in the state ahead of 2027.

Whether the APC can contain the damage, whether the PDP can convert Mustapha’s defection into electoral strength, and whether the AbdulRazaq-Mustapha rivalry will reshape the balance of power in Kwara are questions that will increasingly define the state’s journey towards the 2027 general elections.