Ekiti 2026: Chasing History, Shaping Ekiti Growth Path
… As Oyebanji Rolls Out Mass Canvassers In 500,000 Votes Drive
By Wole Olujobi
“There is no better place than your own country, and no one can build it except you. We must build one nation, one common vision for the progress and prosperity of our people,” said President Bola Ahmed Tinubu at the stakeholders summit of the APC Renewed Hope Agenda Ambassadors in Abuja where he emphasised the importance of unity and collective responsibility in nation-building, noting that Nigeria’s progress depends on a shared vision.
In Ekiti State, the same spirit thrives, as Governor Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji rallies a mass movement in a campaign strategy that tasks his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), to take the message of its reforms to the grassroots in a political evangelism that engages Ekiti people across markets, youth groups, faith-based organisations and other community platforms ahead of the June 20 governorship election.
Oyebanji believes that the success of President Tinubu’s policies is the success of his administration, hence Ekiti people must preach the benefits of APC-led reforms in a unified manner to the last man on the street.
In a party united by one vision, the Senate Leader and Chairman of Ekiti State 2026 Governorship Campaign Council, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, re-echoed the same sentiment in the meeting of the council in Ado-Ekiti, emphasising that the council was looking beyond the June 20 governorship election in its approach and strategy to create a legacy of sustainable reform agenda that will lift Ekiti people and, indeed, all Nigerians, out of poverty.
He said the campaign would be inclusive, transparent, credible, well-coordinated and designed to deliver a minimum of 500,000 votes for the All Progressives Congress governorship candidate, Biodun Oyebanji and repeat of the feat in the 2027 general elections.
Apparently united by one vision encapsulated in the Renewed Hope Agenda, Governor Biodun Oyebanji himself has been a strong proponent of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s “Renewed Hope Agenda”, aligning his state-level development plans with the Federal Government’s goals and has consistently encouraged Ekiti residents to support the “Renewed Hope” administration to ensure continued development and prosperity.
Believing that Ekiti State must play a frontline role in this development process, Oyebanji has declared 100 per cent support for President 2027 re-election. In February 2026, Oyebanji endorsed the “Renewed Hope Agenda for Asiwaju 2027” during a meeting with the South West Arewa Community.
The governor has since heavily promoted the “Bring Back the Youths to Agriculture” initiative, commissioning “Renewed Hope Dormitories” and farm settlements in October 2025. These initiatives focus on food security, agricultural industrialisation, and engaging over 5,000 youths, in line with federal mandates.
He has also worked closely with federal agencies, among which is the Federal Housing Agency, which plans to activate the Renewed Hope Agenda’s housing policy, aiming for 800 units in Ekiti, including embarking on the rural economy with the construction of trenches around farm clusters in Oke-Ako, Ado-Ekiti, Emure-Ekiti and Ise-Ekiti to prevent cattle incursion, enhance food security and redirect Ekiti youths from the paths where violent crime is a modern ecstasy.
All these earned Oyebanji a resounding commendation by the Presidency in
August 2025, when President Tinubu praised Governor Oyebanji for his leadership in advancing infrastructure, security and economic growth, noting that Ekiti’s initiatives mirror national reforms.
However, the survival and sustenance of this vision and institutionalisation of the process depends on the voting behaviour of voters during elections since the aggregation of citizens’ support can only be validated in the elections of leaders.
In Ekiti State, the beginning of this process is the mass mobilisation of the residents in a campaign strategy that will post a minimum of 500,000 votes, in the first instance, in the forthcoming June 20 governorship election. That much Senate Leader Bamidele reiterated at the inaugural meeting of the Ekiti State Governorship Campaign Council.
As the Renewed Hope Agenda debuted in Ekiti State, so is a new campaign strategy that de-emphasises jamborees and street shows as in the sports of revellers but the sort that elevates man-on-man, community-based engagements in a campaign model that is interactive in form and persuasive in content.
Here, Governor Biodun Oyebanji’s strategy in driving the national agenda of his party’s mission and vision in Ekiti State is anchored on local engagements of the people, to explain in details his development agenda in the coolness of relaxed mood far away from the cacophony of the past riotous public campaign scenes that delivered campaign messages that were neither evaluated nor digested, to post a programme appeal that will shape voting behaviour during election to choose effective leaders.
For the “returning” Director General of the Campaign Council, Senator Cyril Fasuyi, to win the June 20 election for Oyebanji, which is certain, is not even the most important of the current grassroots campaign initiative; but to make history for the first time by securing a minimum of 500,000 votes as a new beginning for Ekiti State in her development strategy and in a new movement shaped by a common vision for progress.
According to Fasuyi, Ekiti people will be making a statement with that figure that will shape a common vision of a people desiring good life in contrast to the past years of gambling with their destinies.
The Senator, a “ranking DG” of Oyebanji’s campaign organisation, was more direct in the mandate to make history in APC’s 500,000 votes drive.
His words: “APC will run an issue-based campaign anchored on verifiable achievements rather than engage in political mudslinging. Governor Oyebanji’s track record would speak for itself.
“Our directive is clear. Perish the thought of violence from our side. We have told every of our members to market our records, and not abuse any opponent. Mr Governor has kept Ekiti the most secure state in Nigeria. We will not destroy that record during the campaign. We will deal in facts, not fights.”
To achieve the target, Fasuyi, supported by the brilliant and debonair political communicator, Senator Yemi Adaramodu, said the governor had already started the campaign himself with his credible records of performance, adding also that the party had started aggressive mobilisation at the grassroots, with party members across the 177 wards engaging in door-to-door and ward-level canvassing.
“Our objective is for the APC to win for Governor Biodun Oyebanji in all the 177 wards of Ekiti State. We are targeting a minimum of 500,000 votes. In this election, every member of APC is a canvasser in the place where he or she lives. With unity, discipline, and hard work, it is achievable,” Fasuyi assured.
The combined mission of Senators Bamidele, Fasuyi and Adaramodu targets both historic and historical moments in the election behaviour among Ekiti people in their drive for decent living anchored on right leadership and good governance that sustains economic and social development. They hope to achieve that by breaking the past unedifying records in election results that stoked mass poverty among Ekiti people who had in the past suffered from the pains of the succession election bogey that haunted efforts for the development needs of the people.
For instance in 1999, the first elected governor of Ekiti State on the progressives platform, the Alliance of Democracy (AD), Otunba Adeniyi Adebayo, scored 300,118 votes to beat his opponent in PDP who scored 112,606.
Since then, even if they won at polls, there has been a consistent drop in scores for the progressives. For instance in 2003, PDP scored 219,906 votes to beat AD, scoring 168, 391. In the 2007 controversial election that took three and half years to resolve in the courts, ACN (an offspring of AD) scored 105,631 votes while PDP got 95,176.
There was a somersault again in 2014, as PDP scored 203,090 votes to defeat APC (an offshoot of ACN), which scored 120,433 votes.
But in 2018, APC rallied with 197,459 votes to beat PDP’s candidate who scored 178,121 and in 2022, the results dropped again for Oyebanji of APC scoring 187,057 votes to beat his SDP rival who scored 82, 209.
For Oyebanji, even though his political party secured more victories than other parties, drops in fortunes must stop for APC at polls, as constant change of government means instability with inconsistent policy direction and tapestry of convoluted development plans with devastating consequences on the development needs of the people, who voted not on the strength of programme appeal but propelled by pedestrian sentiments with dire consequences that can rarely be revamped.
To reverse the trend in order to drive a development agenda where citizens understand what growth means like in Lagos State, Oyebanji’s current drive is a deliberate campaign strategy that emphasises the understanding of the issues at stake, and so how to address them must be instituted in a communal spirit to drive a change agenda for sustainable development.
The trend in the past was troubling and nothing but Ekiti people gambling with their lives. One-on-one engagement in a simple, local language devoid of flambouyant soap-box rhetoric is the first step in the series of other initiatives that Oyebanji hopes to institute for the first time to drive a common development agenda for the progress of Ekiti people.
For effect, 500,000 votes will mark the beginning of a process of a determined sustainable development agenda plan and signal a committment and affirmation that Ekiti is the cradle of progressive politics in Nigeria, as the House of Assembly, local governments and National Assembly consist of APC members.
As campaigns officially take off on April 27, 2026, Oyebanji will be chasing history in his drive to garner 500,000 votes to post a superior voting behaviour among voters to register Ekiti State as the bastion of the progressives in his mission to use that landmark as a strength to plot development agenda for Ekiti people in a sustainable manner as envisaged by Tinubu’s development drive anchored on Renewed Hope Agenda.
The time for Ekiti people to shape their destinies is now. Oyebanji is providing the leadership that lights the path to the attainment of that goal to tame the succession hiccups that have distorted the charted course for Ekiti development.
- Olujobi is Deputy Director 1, Media and Communications Directorate of the 2026 Ekiti State Governorship Campaign Council
.
