Why Ondo’s Two Political Power Centres Must Find Common Ground for Tinubu’s 2027 Project

Both Ondo State Governor, Lucky Aiyedatiwa and Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, owe their current political standing to the same man, which makes their present friction in Ondo something closer to a family dispute than an ordinary rivalry. Or so observers say.

But the case can be made more easily for Aiyedatiwa, especially his survival. As deputy governor in 2023, he faced an impeachment attempt backed by all 26 members of the Ondo Assembly, driven by factional fighting around the late Governor Rotimi Akeredolu. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu summoned both sides to Abuja and ordered it dropped.

That intervention let Aiyedatiwa remain in office, succeed Akeredolu upon his death, and later win a term of his own. Tunji-Ojo’s path ran differently but traces back to the same source.

The man in question was a federal lawmaker with regional influence until August 2023, when Tinubu appointed him Minister of Interior. The ministry gave Tunji-Ojo, popularly called BTO, a national platform he had not previously held, visible through his clearing of passport backlogs and the automation of immigration systems.

Both Aiyedatiwa and Tunji-Ojo, in other words, hold their current positions because Tinubu decided they should. And it is a debt that analysts argue has not produced a shared strategy.

Aiyedatiwa is building Ondo for Tinubu 2027 through the machinery of incumbency, while Tunji-Ojo funds parallel groups, including the Grassroots Movement for Tinubu, drawing on federal resources and independent mobilisation networks.

Ondo APC chairman Babatunde Kolawole has called both men brothers working toward the same goal, a description meant to lower the temperature around a dispute that has already disrupted the party’s National Assembly consensus arrangements in the state.

The practical argument for cooperation is straightforward. Aiyedatiwa controls party structure and government machinery. Tunji-Ojo controls grassroots networks that reach voters formal party channels often miss. Combined, they cover more ground than either does alone.

Whether that combination happens will depend less on statements from party elders than on whether either man is willing to let the other’s network operate without trying to absorb or outshine it.