By Seun Oloketuyi

The omission of Ladi Adebutu and his running mate, Yemi Sowunmi-Kolapo, from the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) list for the 2027 Ogun State governorship election may have raised concerns within the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), but there are reasons the party remains confident that its candidate can still make the list.

At the centre of the dispute is Adebutu’s membership registration. His camp maintains that he completed the PDP’s digital registration, had his membership card printed and verified, and fulfilled the necessary requirements within the stipulated period. The Ogun PDP has also insisted that his name was included in the membership register submitted to INEC.

If the party can back these claims with verifiable records, it will have a strong basis to challenge the omission and ask the commission to reconsider its decision.

Another point in Adebutu’s favour is that INEC officials monitored the PDP governorship primary held on September 27, 2026, where he emerged as the party’s candidate. While monitoring the primary does not automatically settle the separate membership register issue, it forms part of the process that produced the PDP ticket.

INEC has explained that the omission of affected candidates is linked to compliance with membership register requirements under the Electoral Act 2026. The Supreme Court upheld the relevant provisions in its September 24 judgment. The law must be respected, but the facts surrounding each disputed case must also be properly examined.

The PDP has an opportunity to notify INEC of the omission and present supporting documents before the October 24, 2026 deadline. This gives the party a chance to demonstrate that it complied with the requirements and that Adebutu’s exclusion should be reviewed.

For Adebutu, the key is proving that his registration and the party’s submission of its membership register met the law. If the documents support the PDP’s position, INEC would have grounds to reconsider the omission in accordance with the law.

The issue also matters to Ogun voters, who deserve a fair opportunity to choose among candidates who meet the electoral requirements. Adebutu’s supporters believe he should have the opportunity to contest if he has fulfilled the conditions set by law.

Ultimately, political reactions will not decide this matter; the evidence will. The PDP must present its records, and INEC must assess them fairly.

Adebutu’s return to the list is not yet confirmed, but the case is far from over. If the PDP can prove that the requirements were met and his omission was unjustified, there is a strong basis for his name to be restored to INEC’s list.

Seun oloketuyi Author of How to Win Elections in Nigeria writes from Lagos.

On the 2nd of October, 2026, an XEJet aircraft lifted off from Abuja and touched down at Gusau International Airport. For the people of Zamfara, that moment had been thirty years in the making.

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This was no ordinary commercial flight launch; for a northwestern state that had never had an airport since its creation in 1996, it was long overdue.

While many still lazily define Zamfara as a den of kidnappers, Governor Dauda Lawal has spent most of three years pouring concrete into a runway that tells a different story.

Before Gusau International Airport existed, anyone in Zamfara needing to fly had to endure hours on the road to Sokoto or Kano.

For Muslims embarking on the Hajj pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia, that overland journey was itself an ordeal.

For a state blessed with agricultural riches and mineral potential, the absence of an air corridor meant investors looked elsewhere, farm produce could not efficiently reach external markets and the movement of talent was shackled by sheer distance.

This isolation was not natural. It was the product of decades of governance failure.

A previous administration had announced the airport’s construction in 2019, claiming a $1 billion public-private partnership would deliver it.

By the time Lawal took office in May 2023, what remained was a graveyard of unfinished concrete and a financial record clouded in opacity.

Governor Lawal inherited not just an abandoned project but a treasury hollowed out by years of mismanagement and lack of foresight.

In June 2024, construction restarted and by March 2026, a Federal Government Bombardier Challenger 605 completed a historic test flight at Gusau International Airport, confirming that the runway, navigation aids and ground handling systems met airworthiness standards which was met with commendation from the aviation industry players.

It was a timeline compressed to its limits. In Nigeria, a state-level airport project typically takes years, sometimes over a decade, from conception to operation.

Lawal’s team did it in under two years of hard work. More significant is the technical validation.

Official records show Gusau International Airport became the only airport in Nigeria to pass all 17 International Civil Aviation Organisation quality assurance steps.

That detail may escape the average traveller but it means this is not a vanity project dressed up for ribbon-cutting photographs. It is infrastructure built to international specifications.

On the 15th of May, 2026, the first Hajj flight departed from Gusau, carrying 415 pilgrims on a Max Air aircraft directly to Saudi Arabia.

At the inaugural ceremony, Lawal said many people doubted whether this could become a reality.

That sentence captured the story of a state that had been underestimated for far too long, finally proving its doubters wrong.

Critics asked, does a state with stubbornly high poverty rates really need an international airport?

That question ignores the most basic causal relationship between infrastructure and economic development. Zamfara’s agricultural potential has been strangled by transport bottlenecks for decades.

The state produces hibiscus, sesame seeds, groundnut seeds, cotton seeds, Sorghum (Guinea Corn) & Millet precisely the commodities in high demand in international markets.

But without air cargo links and efficient logistics, farmers sell raw materials cheaply to middlemen while the bulk of the profit flows elsewhere.

Lawal with an investment banker background understands that what he is building is not just an airport but an ecosystem.

On the 21st of September, 2026, the Zamfara State Government signed an air route development agreement with XEJet, establishing regular commercial flights between Gusau and Abuja, operating Bi-weekly.

On the 2nd of October, 2026, two days after commercial flights began, he flagged off a 95-kilometre road project in Tsafe Local Government Area.

The road, connecting farming communities like Yandoton Daji, Cediya and Doka, includes five bridges. Its purpose is unambiguous; let farm produce out, let security forces in.

“When roads connecting farmlands are motorable, the heavy machinery we procured can reach the fields,” Lawal said at the groundbreaking. “After harvest, agricultural produce can move smoothly to markets.” Governor Lawal Said.

This is not an isolated project; it’s a coherent chain, the airport opens external gateways, the roads open internal circulation and together they transform the deadlock of “farmers can grow but cannot sell” into a living economy where produce moves, markets expand and money stays in local pockets.

On the surface, this is a simple route. Symbolically, it is a rupture. It means Gusau is no longer a dot on the map that requires a gruelling journey to reach. It is a destination accessible from the capital in about an hour.

For investors, the decision cost of travelling to Gusau drops from a full day on the road to a short 40-minute flight from Abuja.

For civil servants, traders, students and patients, this route redraws the boundaries of what is possible in daily life.

The airport terminal offers free internet access. Lawal’s team clearly intends for Gusau to be connected not only physically to the national grid of transportation but digitally to the networks of the knowledge economy.

In a state seeking to nurture IT talent and attract tech-enabled businesses, connectivity is not a luxury; it is the foundation.

What the airport represents is a shift in trajectory a proof that Zamfara can conceive, execute and complete a project of national significance within a single political term.

In years to come, when Zamfara farmers are exporting hibiscus, sesame and other agricultural produce directly to buyers in Europe and the Middle East, when investors are flying in for meetings rather than avoiding the state altogether, when a young person from Gusau can board a flight to Abuja for a job interview and return the same day, the true value of this airport will become apparent.

Starting and finishing a project of that magnitude in under three years is the mark of a government serious about development at every level.

Governor Lawal deserves the accolades. More importantly, the people of Zamfara deserve the future this runway has opened for them.

Also read: Governor Dauda Lawal Announces Nationwide Nutrition Emergency, National Intervention Fund at Addis Ababa Summit

The rescue mission is not complete; the planes are flying, for a state that spent three decades grounded, this development is nothing short of a revolution.

By Folake Adeyemi,

Politics rewards those who show up when it matters. The appointment of Senator Gbenga Daniel as Deputy Zonal Coordinator I (South West) of the Contact and Mobilisation Directorate of the APC Presidential Campaign Council is, in my view, a case of the right man being handed the right assignment.

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Consider the timing. Ogun State politics is currently thick with intrigue, rival camps and loud posturing. In such seasons, a leader’s actions say more than his supporters’ press statements.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has, once again, spoken through action: Senator Daniel is his friend and ally, and he is trusted with one of the most sensitive committees in the campaign. Those still trying to read political tea leaves in Ogun would do well to read this one clearly.

The Contact and Mobilisation Directorate is not ceremonial. It is where goodwill is converted into Permanent Voter Cards, and where PVCs are converted into votes.

With Borno State Governor, Prof. Babagana Zulum, leading the committee, the party has signalled that it takes this assignment seriously.

For the South West, the message is plain: the region must deliver for the President, whose lasting impact depends on the votes it brings.

Daniel is well suited to that task. He is a former Governor of Ogun State and the Senator representing Ogun East, but his political weight has never stopped at the boundaries of one senatorial district. It is felt across Ogun and throughout the South West.

He also knows national campaigns from the inside, having served as Campaign Director-General for former Vice President Atiku Abubakar. That is not experience one acquires from the sidelines.

Nor is he a politician who surfaces only at election time. Through the BATOGD Movement, which he founded, he is currently running an unprecedented medical outreach, and he is known for economic empowerment programmes that touch ordinary lives.

Mobilisation works best when it is built on genuine presence in communities, and that is exactly what he brings.

He will not work alone. Niyi Adebayo, Segun Oni and Akinwunmi Ambode share the zonal leadership with him, and each has points to prove.

The South West team is well prepared and well recommended, and the healthy competition among these political veterans may well be the region’s biggest asset.

The challenge now is delivery. Appointments are easy to celebrate; results are what history records.

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If Senator Daniel brings his experience, his grassroots network and his reputation as a mobiliser to bear on this task, the South West will have little reason to fear for the outcome.

For now, one conclusion stands: Gbenga Daniel is a leader to reckon with.