Adegoke, Alagbe, Adeduntan: The Three-Way Fight For Oyo ADC Ticket

A fresh suit at the Federal High Court in Abuja has pulled the contest for the African Democratic Congress (ADC) governorship ticket in Oyo State deeper into the courts, as three aspirants press competing claims to a nomination that could shape the 2027 race for the Agodi Government House.

The latest twist came when Dr Azeez Adeduntan, one of the aspirants, filed an action challenging the submission of Olooye Adegboyega Taofeek Adegoke as the party’s candidate. According to the Oyo Youth Alliance (OYA), which reviewed the originating summons, the respondents are the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as first respondent, the ADC as second, the party’s National Organising Secretary, Chinedu Idigo, as third, the Chairman of its Oyo State Electoral Committee, Harrison Akpojero, as fourth, and Adegoke himself as fifth.

In a statement issued on Thursday, 20 August 2026, and signed by its Chairman, Alhaji Ganiyu Busari, and Secretary, Comrade Segun Adedeji, OYA said the suit confirmed that the ADC leadership forwarded Adegoke’s name to INEC on 5 August 2026. The group argued that this undercut the claim by another aspirant, Dr Gbemileke Alagbe, that he was the authentic candidate. “Why is it that it is Adegoke that Adeduntan joined in his suit? Why did Adeduntan state in his motion that ADC submitted Adegoke’s name on the 5th of August and not Alagbe’s name?” the group asked, advising Alagbe to stop creating confusion.

At the centre of the dispute is a primary held on 22 May 2026. According to figures circulated by Adegoke’s media team and reported by several outlets, he polled 16,051 votes, ahead of Bisi Ilaka with 11,415, while Alagbe was credited with 241, Adeduntan 155 and Niyi Aborisade 67. Those figures have not been independently confirmed by the party’s national leadership. Adegoke, a chartered accountant who resigned from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on 2 March 2026 to join the ADC, maintains that his name appears on the INEC portal and says the listing should settle the matter. He has also said he offered to back Alagbe’s senatorial ambition in an attempt to resolve the quarrel.

Alagbe, popularly known as Eleniyan, insists he emerged from the same primary, which he says was monitored by INEC and security agencies. He has since named Barrister Niyi Aborisade as his running mate. Alagbe had earlier approached the Federal High Court in Ibadan in suit number FHC/IB/CS/67/2026, dated 28 June 2026, against the ADC and its National Working Committee. That case has been adjourned to 15 September 2026. Adegoke’s camp has questioned how an aspirant who sued the party could simultaneously claim to be its validly submitted candidate.

The tangle matters because Oyo is one of the more open governorship contests heading into 2027. Governor Seyi Makinde, who is serving out his second term, has thrown his weight behind a national opposition realignment and is pursuing the presidency, leaving the state’s top seat without an incumbent. His preferred successor is contesting on the platform of the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), while the All Progressives Congress (APC) has endorsed Senator Sharafadeen Alli, and the Accord party retains a following built around its previous outings. The ADC, adopted nationally as a coalition vehicle by opposition figures, is fielding candidates across the country for the first time in this cycle, and internal disputes over who carries its flag have surfaced in several states.

Nomination rows of this kind are usually decided not by press statements but by the courts. Under the Electoral Act 2022, only the candidate whose name a party validly submits to INEC appears on the commission’s list, and the commission generally declines to arbitrate between rival claimants, treating the matter as an internal affair to be resolved by the party or the judiciary. Complaints arising from primaries are classified as pre-election matters, which the Constitution requires to be filed within 14 days and determined within 180 days. Those timelines mean the pending suits are likely to be resolved well before campaigns formally open.

For now, the position is unsettled. What is confirmed is that the ADC forwarded Adegoke’s name to INEC, that his details appear on the commission’s portal, and that two separate suits touching on the ticket are before the courts in Ibadan and Abuja. What remains open is whether either action will disturb that submission. Until the courts rule, the ADC in Oyo goes into the pre-election season with its governorship candidate publicly contested by two of the aspirants he is said to have defeated.