Former Senator, Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, has said she does not need the backing of her father, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, as she pursues the Ogun State governorship under the All Progressives Congress ahead of the 2027 general election.
She stated this on Channels Television’s Morning Brief on Friday.
“I don’t need his support. I’m almost 60. I mean I’m 59. I think that at this age, my friends that still have both parents alive are very few, very few.
“So, I consider myself lucky at this age to have both my mother and my father alive. And I don’t think that at this age, I should be consulting them for everything — my career moves,” she said.
She added that her parents would vote for her regardless.
“My father, I know, and my mother will vote for me. That’s all I can ask of them. I don’t even need to ask of them. Even if I didn’t ask, they will vote for me. So my journey in APC is a personal journey for me,” she added.
On the question of consistency, given that she had been absent from active politics since losing her Senate seat, Obasanjo-Bello said she had not intended to seek re-election in the first place, and had postponed her Harvard fellowship by a year due to pressure from supporters.
“I wasn’t going to run for that election. When I lost, I saw it as a blessing. I felt the only way I could not get that pressure and continue to do things that I wasn’t comfortable with doing was to just cut myself away so that they will have to find some other politician to follow or do something else,” she said.
She said her initial entry into politics was driven by excitement at grassroots campaigning, an experience she had never encountered growing up during the military era.
She later served as Commissioner for Health in Ogun State and as a senator representing her senatorial district, positions she described as the foundation of her current governorship bid.
“Everywhere I go in the state now, somebody comes up to me and says, ‘You did this for me’ — something as simple as, you were when you were commissioner, I was hired, or you hired me. I came to talk to you about something and for a job. You saw my CV. I have a lot of goodwill,” she said.
On funding, she disclosed that decades of work in the United States had yielded retirement savings invested in the American stock market, which she said would form part of her campaign war chest.
“If you look at the US stock market, if you put money into it 30 years ago, it’s more than — I can say controversially—times 10 or something.
“So that multiplier is part of the system. By the time you stay for a long time working and you get closer to retirement, you have a nice nest egg. So that is part of my own funding,” she said, adding that she also expected contributions from individuals whose fortunes she had helped advance over the years.
Asked whether channelling her savings into a campaign she could lose was a risk, she said, “Then I still have some savings. I still have 15 years of work life left in me and I’ll go back to work.”
On the party primary, she said no candidate in Ogun State had been given a guaranteed APC ticket, including herself, but expressed confidence in her chances.
“I feel I’m a formidable person to beat because of my track record. I just think I’m a better candidate and more formidable than them. And I’m going to win,” she said.
She noted that at least one other woman had declared for the Ogun governorship, and welcomed the moment as auspicious for women in Nigerian politics, pointing to the pending gender reserved seat bill before the National Assembly as a positive signal.
