As the dust settles on the 2023 polls, the 2027 gubernatorial race in Nigeria’s economic heartbeat is already hitting a fever pitch. At the center of the storm is Dr. Kadri Obafemi Hamzat, the sitting Deputy Governor and the man rumoured as the “heir apparent” to the Alausa throne.
However, what should be a seamless coronation is instead morphing into a high-stakes political battlefield. A growing coalition of opposition figures, especially amongst Lagos Traditional Rulers, civil society groups, and even internal party rebels are calling for a “system reset,” arguing that the very ties that make Hamzat a logical successor are the same factors that make him the wrong choice for a Lagos at a crossroads.
The most potent weapon in the anti-Hamzat arsenal is the silent pushback from Lagos Monarchs across the five IBILE divisions who believed that Hamzat’s stay in the Lagos cabinet since the early 2000s, serving under both Bola Tinubu and Babatunde Fashola as well as being the current Deputy Governor is more than enough favour for a Non-Lagos Indigene.
Aside the traditional Rulers pushback, findings also indicate that Hamzat choice isn’t a popular one amongst party structures in Lagos.
Critics argue that his grassroots appeal is shaky as he’s not “loved” politically, adding that he’s
more technocrat than street politician with low youth emotional connection.
Also, they argue that without the supposed Tinubu’s backing, he brings nothing to the table that’s capable of winning any election.
Perhaps the most sensitive hurdle for the Deputy Governor is the resurfacing of the “Indigenous vs. Settler” debate. While Hamzat is a Lagosian by residence, his deep ancestral roots in Ewekoro, Ogun State, have become a focal point for the “IBILE” indigenous movements.
Indigenous Lagosians are increasingly weaponizing his lineage, especifically the fact that his late father, Oba Mufutau Olatunji Hamzat, was a traditional ruler in Ogun State which suggest that Hamzat cannot fully represent the cultural “soul” of native Lagosians.
This development has brought about grassroots rebellion within the APC, a “top-down” vs. “bottom-up” civil war is brewing. Hamzat is widely viewed as the choice of the elite “anointing” system, a perception that alienates the party’s street-level loyalists.
“We are tired of imported technocrats,” a party grassroots leader noted. “If the party skips populist, home-grown candidates in favor of a hand-picked successor, they risk a repeat of the 2023 presidential shocks where the base simply refused to turn out.”
“Lagos requires a fresh philosophy, not a recycled one,” said another civil rights activist who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “After 25 years of the same political lineage, the current ‘Lagos Masterplan’ has reached its saturation point. We need radical innovation, not a career technocrat who is too emotionally invested in the failures of the past.”
