Since Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999, Oyo State, known to be the political capital of the Southwest region has served as the battleground for several political actors who have shaped and continue to shape the country’s politics and polity.
Naturally, many of these actors always have their gazes fixed on the landlord position at Agodi. But none, arguably, have desired that seat more than the billionaire industrialist and politician, Yekini Adeojo.
Adeojo died in the early hours of April 4, 2025. He was a man of many walks. A politician. An industrialist. A philanthropist. A religious leader. The list goes on and on. But there’s perhaps nothing he’ll be remembered for more than that which he never achieved: his desire to govern Oyo State.
The Governor That Never Was
A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party until his death, Adeojo’s first shot at the gubernatorial seat in Oyo State was in 1991 when he contested under the platform of the National Republic Convention (NRC). He lost to his kinsman, the late Kolapo Ishola of the Social Democratic Party (SDP).
Upon the return to democracy in 1999, as a founding member of the People’s Democratic Party, he secured the party’s ticket in the gubernatorial election in the state.
But his billions was not enough to prevent a defeat in the hands of the late Lam Adesina of the Alliance for Democracy (AD). Adeojo’s defeat in the race was part of the PDP’s poor outing in local elections across the Southwest which enabled the AD to win all gubernatorial seats in the region.
Bola Tinubu in Lagos. Olusegun Osoba in Ogun. Bisi Akande in Osun. Niyi Adebayo in Ekiti. Adebayo Adefarati in Ondo — It was a clean sweep for the AD and Adeojo was just another victim of a political landslide.
By the time the tide turned in 2003 and the PDP recorded gubernatorial victories in all states in the region, with the exception of Lagos retained by Tinubu, Adeojo was no longer the party’s flagbearer. He lost the ticket to eventual winner, Rashidi Ladoja. In 2007, he again failed to win the ticket which was secured by Ladoja’s successor, Alao Akala. On both occasions, Adeojo’s ambition faced stiff opposition from the late ironman of Oyo politics, Lamidi Adedibu.
Adeojo continued to remain on the political scene, eyeing the guber seat, until he eventually gave up his dream to govern the state, and active politics by extension, in the aftermath of the 2015 general elections when he declared in an interview that he was “fed up with politics”.
A Philanthropist That Never Retired
While Adeojo may have retired from active politics in 2015, he never retired from philanthropy.
Unlike his politics which was very popular, some of Adeojo’s most significant acts of philanthropy were never publicized, at least not by him.
In 2015, about the same time he retired from politics, he made his privately owned basic and secondary schools, headed at the time by one of his daughter, Rukayat Osho Adeojo, completely free for students. It was a rare act of kindness that went on for many years yet many never heard of and even he never really spoke about it.
But this act of kindness is just one of the many ways he helped others in the state. For years, his central mosque located on the boluwaji axis of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway was home to an assembly of people who received palliative cash gifts after Jummat every Friday.
So while Adeojo did give up on his dream to govern Oyo, he helped many fulfill their dreams till the very end.
