As political consultations intensify ahead of key decisions in bringing a new LGA Chairman in Ajeromi Local Government, leaders and stakeholders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) are increasingly shifting focus from zoning considerations to the imperative of rebuilding party strength and electoral competitiveness.
Political observers note that past circumstances and arrangements had once seen both the LGA and Executive Chairmanship positions emerge from the Olodi axis and, in fact, from the same house, even though the LGA Chairman was two years in office before the emergence of the Executive Chairman, which didn’t change anything. This development has continued to shape conversations around balance and inclusion within the council. While some party members argue that the Ajegunle axis, long absent from the Executive chairmanship seat since the creation of the local government, deserves extra consideration, and so influential voices within the party had taken cue to caution against allowing zoning to override the broader goal of party revival.
According to party leaders who spoke with Lagos Focus, the APC’s immediate challenge is not where the next LGA chairman comes from, but who possesses the capacity to restore internal cohesion, strengthen grassroots structures, and return the party to winning ways. They argue that the party’s declining influence requires a strategic reset anchored on competence, experience, and the strong character of the emerging LGA Chairman.
Concerns over dwindling party fortunes have been echoed by several prominent APC figures, including former Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, who has previously called for introspection and organizational renewal within the party. Locally, Ajeromi leaders admit that weak party structures and an ineffective reward system have equally adversely affected morale, loyalty, and performance of the party.
Some stakeholders trace the party’s challenges to the post–Mauruf Bayewu (Ologbojo) era, alleging that party administration gradually blurred into routine council business, weakening accountability mechanisms. They recall a period when structured records helped track beneficiaries of party opportunities, ensuring fairness and inclusiveness, an approach they say has since diminished.
Against this backdrop, party elders insist that the next APC LGA Chairman must be a tested party administrator with a strong character, proven integrity, and the wisdom to manage competing interests. Such a leader, they say, must work collaboratively with the party’s apex leadership, the council chairman, and elected representatives at both state and federal levels to rebuild trust and restore organizational discipline.
While acknowledging sentiments around inclusion and fairness across the local government’s divides of Ajegunle, Olodi, and Araromi, stakeholders maintain that zoning should not be the sole determinant in selecting party leadership at this critical juncture. “What the party needs now is a committed, disciplined, and visionary chairman, someone with the capacity to listen, unite, and rebuild,” a party leader said.
As the APC seeks reinvigoration in Ajeromi, the prevailing consensus among its leadership is clear: restoring party supremacy will depend less on geography and more on the quality of leadership entrusted with steering its affairs forward.
Is history going to repeat itself or be fairer to the Ajegunle axis, this time around, to reward the axis of her long deprivation, denial, and marginalization of being in the driver’s seat of both the party LGA and Council Chairmanship seat? Time will surely tell.
