The Baba, the Grandmaster and the leaked audio: How the fear of Yayi is haunting Ogun’s political casino
By Segun Olatunji
Welcome once again to Ogun State, Nigeria’s undisputed capital of political drama, where the atmosphere is ever thick with the scent of burning ambition, the ground is strewn with the dry bones of dead party alliances, and the phone lines are apparently as secure as a screen door on a submarine reaching for the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean at the Devil’s Triangle, notoriously known as the “Bermuda Triangle.”
If you thought the race for the Oke Mosan Governor’s Office was going to be a dignified affair full of polite debate, you certainly have lost concentration. The latest hit single dropping from the ever-busy studios of the Gateway State is neither an Afrobeats track from Davido or Burna Boy nor some newly released Apala epic from the archive of the late legendary traditional music maestro, Alhaji Ayinla Omowura; it is a spicy, allegedly “doctored” audio leak featuring two of the state’s heaviest hitters aggressively panicking over how to stop the fast-moving train of a single, ubiquitous political juggernaut. It seems billionaire businessman and lotto mogul, popularly called “Baba Ijebu”, finally found a lottery number he couldn’t game, and former Ogun State governor cum incumbent Ogun East Senator, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, aka OGD, discovered that even grandmasters get caught with their mics open.
For the script of the Gateway tapes, it’s apt we set the scene: it is a quiet evening. In the murky waters of Ogun politics, a voice that sounds suspiciously like Baba Ijebu’s is speaking with a voice that sounds suspiciously like OGD’s. They aren’t discussing philanthropy, the price of cement, unstable electricity and unpredictable price of petrol, the ever-rising prices of foodstuffs and other staples or the state of infrastructure in Ogun East. No. They are discussing one mathematical problem that even Baba Ijebu’s legendary lottery algorithms can’t seem to solve: the Yayi problem.
For those unfamiliar with the political trajectory of Senator Adeola, popularly called Yayi by his teeming supporters, the man is a walking, talking marvel of political geography. No wonder, in the leaked tape, the two speakers marvel at his sheer audacity. “He’s from Ekiti, he’s from Lagos, he’s now from Ogun,” one of them laments, as they seem confusedly overwhelmed with the actual location of the Ogun West Senator’s umbilical cord.
However, one sure thing is that the audio captures a profound sense of administrative panic. The Ogun 2027 governorship game, as one of the voices succinctly puts it, “has become much tougher.” Why? Because Yayi isn’t just lounging in the National Assembly; he is currently operating as the de facto Ogun APC consensus gubernatorial candidate, complete with a shiny state-of-the-art campaign headquarters in Abeokuta, the state capital, that looks like it has its own zip code.
Of course, the core of the distress call boils down to family business. Baba Ijebu’s son, Ladi Adebutu, has been chasing the Ogun governorship seat with the persistence of a Lagos traffic hawker desperate to sell bags of chilled pure water taken on credit, during a heavy rain in a gridlock. He desperately tried in 2019, he practically bled for it in 2023, and by Jovian decree, he has thrown his hat into the ring yet again in 2027.
But as the audio reveals, the calculations are looking bleaker than a dried out, sun-scorched oasis in the Sahara desert. Ogun East has traditionally been a comfortable stronghold for the Adebutu political machinery. However, the tape reveals a looming shadow over this fortress: incumbent Governor Dapo Abiodun. The governor has thrown his substantial weight behind Yayi, the ruling All Progressives Congress’ governorship candidate, effectively eroding the home-court advantage of the opposition PDP candidate, Ladi Adebutu.
When a sitting Governor and the Ogun political machine team up to back a man who distributes community electricity transformers like party favours, what is a billionaire lotto father to do? Of course, you can’t exactly confront a political bulldozer by drawing a “lucky three” from a ballot machine.
Then enter the conversation’s most cinematic element: “Option B.” In the leaked dialogue, there is a vague, conspiratorial chatter about lowering signals, consulting with the President, and letting things “come out in court.” It reads like a transcript from a low-budget Nollywood political thriller where the main characters realise they forgot to buy the script. The reliance on Federal connections, backroom judicial manoeuvres and institutional technicalities reveals a timeless truth about Nigerian politics: if you cannot beat them at the ballot box, you look for a judge who is willing to look at the paperwork through a very specific pair of glasses.
Now, the denial: “It’s a deepfake, I swear!” Naturally, no Nigerian political scandal is complete without the mandatory, swift and utterly predictable media denial.
Within 24 hours of the tape hitting the social media, the OGD Media Office scrambled to the microphones in radio studios; they scampered to the press. They didn’t just deny the tape; they treated it like a piece of “jedi-jedi” ravaged faeces-soiled tissue paper dropped into their living room. According to their official statement, the recording is “manipulated, deliberately doctored,” and part of a “calculated attempt to damage the former governor’s reputation.”
But one very surprising thing: the media team even claimed they knew about the recording six weeks ago. One must then wonder: if you knew about a reputational pipe bomb sitting in your backyard for a month and a half, why wait until it goes viral on social media to call it a fake? Were they waiting for better lighting?
One beauty of modern Nigerian politics is that everything undesirable is now labeled a “deepfake” or “AI-generated.” It is a glorious era to be a politician; you can say the most unhinged things on an open mic, and when the public reacts, you simply blame it on a malicious teenager with a laptop, a voice-cloning app, and too much free time.
While the old guard is allegedly whispering into phones about how to stop the Ogun APC governorship hopeful, what is Senator Yayi doing? Of course, he is doing what he does best: being everywhere at once, like WiFi in a tech hub, consulting and consolidating ahead of the 2027 governorship election in the state.
Yayi’s political strategy is a masterclass in aggressive, daylight charm. He was recently seen performing the mandatory cultural ritual of Ogun politics— prostrating flat on the floor before Ijebu traditional rulers, and as the “Omoluabi” that he is, declared that “respect is non-negotiable.”
It is a beautiful contrast. While his opponents are allegedly scheming in private rooms about how to check his INEC forms and challenge his ancestral origin, Yayi is out there on the asphalt, within the same vicinity, face down in the dust before the royal fathers, winning hearts, minds and endorsements. He is literally vacuuming up political goodwill while lying down.
Yayi’s supporters aren’t even angry about the leaked audio; they are ecstatic. They have been sharing the clips with captions urging the public to “listen to the panic in their voices.” When your opponents’ leaked strategy session consists mostly of them admitting that you are incredibly powerful and that you’ve turned the political landscape into an extreme sport, the leak isn’t a smear campaign—it’s a glowing performance review.
What this leaked tape truly reveals is that the 2027 governorship race in Ogun State is not going to be a battle of ideologies. Nobody is arguing over healthcare frameworks or tax percentages. It is going to be a classic, old-fashioned turf war over who owns the keys to the kingdom.
On one side, you have those who pride themselves as the “indigenous elite,” but who feel that the state’s political real estate is being aggressively bought up by an “atohunrinwa” with a Lagos pedigree. On the other side, you have a relentless political juggernaut backed by the incumbent Governor, armed with immense Federal goodwill, and a track record of life-impacting developmental project distribution that makes opposition alignment look like a local town union meeting.
For Baba Ijebu, politics is beginning to look like one of his own betting terminals: a game of high stakes, shifting odds, and unpredictable payouts. But unlike a lottery ticket, you cannot just buy another chance when the numbers don’t add up, and “Option B” doesn’t come with a cash-back guarantee.
As the security agencies are reportedly being dragged into investigating who tapped the phones, and as the various media teams sharpen their pens for the next round of press statements, the average Ogun citizen is left with the best entertainment money can’t buy. Grab your grilled or is it cooked cob of “agbado,” Omo Ogun. The “Option B” chronicles have just begun, the signals are being lowered, and in the grand casino of the Gateway State politics, the house always wins— the Ogun electorate already knows whose house the turn is, anyway.
By and large, the Gateway State has reminded us once again that Nigerian politics is the best reality TV money can buy. While the old guard scrambles to delete their call logs and blame everything on “AI deepfakes,” the average Ogun voter is left secretly gloating. For some political godfathers, the 2027 Ogun governorship race must shape up to be less of an election and more of a high-stakes casino night where the odds are rigged, the mics are always live, and the house rules fluidly changed by the minute.
Olatunji, a Journalist, Political/Crisis Communication Strategist, writes from Ilaro, Ogun State
