Teslim Kolawole Folarin has spent more than half his adult life trying to become governor of Oyo State. On Monday, he stood before a crowd in Ibadan, raised the hand of the man who finally got the ticket he wanted, and declared that the fight was over. It was a moment of political theatre, but it was also something more: an admission that the All Progressives Congress in Oyo State cannot afford another four years in opposition, and that the man who once called the primary a sham is now the man tasked with delivering the state for the party.
The reconciliation between Folarin and Senator Sharafadeen Alli, the APC’s 2027 governorship candidate, came after months of bitterness. Folarin’s camp had alleged that the primary that produced Alli was marred by irregularities. He had demanded a fresh election. He had, alongside other aggrieved chieftains including former Minister of Power Adebayo Adelabu and Senator Abdulfatai Buhari, distanced himself from Alli’s candidacy while campaigning for President Bola Tinubu’s re-election. Then Tinubu intervened. The President invited Folarin to Aso Rock, asked him to work for the party’s victory, and appointed him coordinator of the Oyo State Presidential Campaign Council. On Monday, Folarin fell in line.
Who Is Teslim Folarin?
Folarin is not a newcomer to Oyo politics. He is a three-term senator who represented Oyo Central and served as Senate Leader during his time in the National Assembly . His political pedigree stretches back to the Olubadan chieftaincy system, where he holds the title of Agbaakin Olubadan, elevated from Aare Alaasa Olubadan in November 2025 . He was the APC’s governorship candidate in 2023, losing to Governor Seyi Makinde of the Peoples Democratic Party.
The numbers from that defeat are the clearest measure of the gap he must now help close. In the March 2023 governorship election, Makinde polled 563,756 votes. Folarin polled 256,685 . The PDP won 31 of the state’s 33 local government areas. Folarin won two. It was not a close contest. It was a rout.
Yet Folarin’s value to the APC machinery is not measured solely by that result. He remains one of the party’s most recognisable figures in Oyo, with a network that spans the state’s senatorial districts. His appointment as Renewed Hope Ambassador in Oyo was widely seen as an attempt by the presidency to use his influence to stabilise a fractious state party . The Sun reported that after Folarin’s meeting with Tinubu, chieftains who had fallen apart—including Adelabu, Buhari and former Deputy Governor Rauf Olaniyan—began appearing together at functions for the first time since 2023 . Folarin’s reconciliation with Alli is the culmination of that process, or at least the public performance of it.
The Arithmetic of 2023 and the Promise of 2027
The APC’s confidence in Oyo rests on a paradox. The party lost the governorship by a landslide, but it won the presidential election in the state convincingly. In February 2023, Tinubu polled 449,884 votes in Oyo, defeating Atiku Abubakar of the PDP (182,977) and Peter Obi of the Labour Party (99,110) . It was one of Tinubu’s strongest margins in the South-West.
Alli has repeatedly cited this figure as evidence that Oyo is winnable. At the inauguration of the PBAT Door-to-Door Movement in October, he recalled that Oyo gave Tinubu the highest number of votes in the South-West and declared that the party would double the figure in 2027 . The party’s target, according to Folarin, is to increase the presidential vote by at least 35 per cent through intensified grassroots mobilisation across all 33 local government areas .
But presidential votes and governorship votes are not interchangeable. In 2023, many Oyo voters split their tickets. They chose Tinubu for president and Makinde for governor. The APC’s challenge is to convince those voters to choose Alli, a man who has never held executive office, over an incumbent who has spent eight years building a reputation for infrastructure delivery and fiscal discipline.
Makinde’s Home Advantage
The complication that neither Folarin nor Alli can wish away is that Seyi Makinde is not just the outgoing governor of Oyo State. He is the presidential candidate of the Allied Peoples Movement . Makinde is running for the highest office in the land, and his home state is his proof of concept. He will want to win Oyo not merely for the APM’s presidential tally but to demonstrate that his model of governance—what he calls the Reset Nigeria agenda—can command a mandate beyond the PDP structure that originally produced him.
Makinde’s record in Oyo gives him a potent argument. He won re-election with over 560,000 votes, a margin of more than 300,000 over Folarin . His administration has maintained consistent payment of salaries and pensions, invested in road infrastructure linking rural and urban areas, and positioned Oyo as a destination for foreign direct investment. Whether or not voters credit him with all of these achievements, the opposition’s task is to persuade them that Alli would do better. That is a high bar.
The APM campaign council has already signalled its intentions. In a statement in October, it listed Oyo among twelve states where Makinde would defeat Tinubu in the 2027 presidential election . The claim is ambitious, perhaps implausible, but it reflects the Makinde camp’s determination to fight for every vote in its home base. For the APC, the risk is not merely losing the presidential vote in Oyo. It is that a strong Makinde performance drags down the party’s governorship and legislative candidates.
Can the APC Win Oyo?
The honest answer is that it is possible but unlikely on current evidence. The APC has two assets: Tinubu’s presidential coattails and the Folarin-Alli reconciliation. The first is uncertain, given the economic hardship that has defined Tinubu’s first term. The second is fragile, given that Folarin himself admitted the reconciliation committee had achieved only about 20 per cent of its target . His call for a review of the party’s reward system—”We won’t allow Alli to rest until all aggrieved members get their own benefits”—is a warning as much as a promise . It suggests that the peace is contingent on patronage, not conviction.
The APC’s best hope lies in the fragmentation of the opposition vote. If Makinde’s APM presidential candidacy pulls votes away from the PDP’s governorship candidate, and if the Labour Party’s residual strength in Ibadan and other urban areas splits the anti-APC vote further, Alli could slip through with a plurality. But that is a scenario built on arithmetic, not enthusiasm. It requires the APC’s base to turn out in numbers that Folarin’s 2023 campaign did not inspire.
Folarin’s 26-year quest for the governorship is now over, at least in its personal form. He has been asked to serve the party rather than himself. Whether he can translate that service into votes for Alli is the question that will define Oyo politics in 2027. The hand he raised on Monday was Alli’s. The burden he carries is his own.
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