A quiet storm that has been brewing within the Ifelodun political setting as Hon. Abdulfatai Orombo Ajidagba, former two-term council chairman and a grassroots active and restless mobilizer, edges toward an open break with the once-daring Mandate Group, a key political group within the Lagos chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Findings from discreet investigations reveal that Ajidagba’s decision to withdraw from the Mandate Group did not come overnight as he once allege that there is nothing left of the Mandate group for him to remain. Sources say he has grown increasingly uneasy over what he perceives as calculated exclusion by the Mandate leader Hon Kolawole Taiwo and Hon Lukman Saad Olumoh , the two top figures whom he accuses of always holding strategy sessions on Mandate matters without his input.
ACO Insiders allege that Ajidagba’s vast support base has been exploited merely for mobilization purposes. “They only call him when they need the crowd,” a close associate quoted him as saying. “They discuss the agenda behind closed doors, then use my people to fill the meeting.”
According to a close source to Ajifat, the fallout runs deeper than meetings and internal politics. The real trigger, he insists, is the approaching 2027 Lagos House of Assembly election for Ajeromi-Ifelodun Constituency I, a seat currently occupied by Hon. Olumoh. Ajidagba, who had made no pretensions to be eyeing the same position, allegedly suspects that the Mandate Group may move to retain Olumoh through back-channel consensus arrangements that could neutralize his ambition.
For Ajidagba and a member of the Ifelodun G17,” it’s a classic power play , one that mirrors the Fubara-Wike drama in Rivers politics,” a political observer in Ajeromi confided. “He feels the Mandate structure could be used to clip his wings before the race even begins.”
