Exclusive Interview: Kwara PDP’s ‘12 Before 1’ Catchphrase, Split Voting ‘Wishful Thinking’, ‘Unrealistic’-Nurudeen Adeyemi

Engineer Nurudeen Adeyemi Balogun, a prominent chieftain of the ruling APC in Kwara State, has described the state PDP’s current catchphrase in the Kwara Central senatorial district, ‘12 Before 1’, as unrealistic and impracticable.

The aerospace engineer, who until May this year represented North Central on the Board of TETFUND, not only explained his critiques of the slogan but also confidently predicted victory for Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq in the upcoming 2027 Kwara Central Senate election.

In this exclusive interview with Team@orientactualmags.com at his Ilorin residence on Thursday, October 22, 2026, the APC stalwart evaluated the achievements of the Abdulrazaq administration while commenting on the opposition party’s proposed split-voting strategy, which includes backing President Bola Tinubu’s re-election.

Read on:

What we witnessed in respect of political climate in Kwara State ahead of the 2023 general election and what is unfolding now, is there any difference? Are there similarities?

No two political journeys are the same. Every political journey has its own unique character and features. In 2023, if you recall, at least in this state, we had many opposition parties that came out of APC. We had the likes of SDP most of them came out of APC. We had the likes of YPP, most of them came out of APC and some other smaller parties as well that came out of APC.

And of course we had the main opposition party then which was PDP, and Alhamdullilahi, the outcome spoke for itself. In 2019 we were able to clear all by getting 35-0.

And likewise in 2023, we were able to repeat the same feat. Fast forward to 2027, we are much better off now, and the opposition is more fragmented. Why will I say so? Almost all the YPP people have returned to APC, ditto SDP people.

Meanwhile, on the opposition side, some of their candidates in 2023 are the major backers of another party in Kwara State which is the ADC and also, some of the elements of the opposition are now in NDC. So, we can see that while the ruling party has consolidated, the opposition has become more fragmented compared to what they were in 2023. So, therefore, given that history and trajectory, we can say that the APC got stronger, while the opposition got weaker. Therefore, we expect the outcome to be the same as 2019 and 2023 in 2027, it will be 35-0.

This is the first time we are witnessing a unique cross- party alliances where we have the PDP working for the same presidential candidate like the APC in the state. Do you see this as a positive sign and a positive development for your party, and what is your take on it?

You said this is the first time it is happening because you’re not a student of history.  Yoruba people will say ‘A o ti riru eleyi ri, afi’n deru ba oloro ni’. This has happened before, actually in this same state. If you go back to 1983, in the presidential election, people voted for the then ruling party NPN. And in the same state, during the gubernatorial election, some people decided to work against the ruling party and supported UPN which brought in Chief C O Adebayo, a former governor, and former minister, may his soul rest in peace.

So, we have seen this before. And even in this current dispensation, many cross-party alliances have happened. Even if you go to what happened in Lagos in 2023, Labour Party won the presidential election, and APC won the gubernatorial election. And many as such across the south-south states in the country. 

The fact that going into 2027 election, we already have 31 governors. We did not start the journey of 2023 with 31 governors in APC. I don’t recall the numbers, I will say we were in the lower 20s, maybe 23 or something, I can’t recall. But as we are marching towards 2027, about 31 of them are already members of APC.

The few that couldn’t join APC had peculiarities. Let us start with Osun State, where we have the Accord Party, Governor Adeleke really wanted to join APC, and we all saw the game play out over months. Unfortunately, the local politics as every politics is local, did not allow him to join APC. And he won his re-election. So, the fact that he is supporting APC is no news. Then we go to Oyo State, we have APM. Obviously, APM was a child of necessity similar to the Accord Party that was a child of necessity in Osun State. So, APM is a platform that is a platform of necessity not a platform of ideology because they saw the disintegration of the PDP, they saw the infighting, they saw that the center could not hold so, they moved to APM.

So, Governor Seyi Makinde who is also a presidential candidate is there, right. So, they are not supporting our party.

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Let’s go to Governor Bala Muhammed, Bauchi. From all indications, he wanted to come into APC as well. He was actually the chairman of PDP Governors’ Forum, and he wanted to join APC. And I think what broke the negotiation was the fact that he wanted to nominate, or have the ability to nominate his successor, but the APC that he was coming into had very strong contenders gunning for the same seat including a former Minister of Foreign Affairs, so, that kind of pushed him or hindered him from joining APC. So, he was already doing APC.

Then we go to the southeast, we have Alex Otti as the Labour Party governor, Labour Party really do not have any presidential candidate this time around. And they believe squarely in the APC ideology, again, their local politics does not allow him to join the APC, that’s why he’s still in Labour Party but he would have ordinarily become an APC member.

Let’s talk about Governor Charles Soludo of APGA. Again, APGA really is a one state party at this time and therefore they do not really have a national reach. And of course as common denominator, Governor Charles Soludo has always supported president Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

 So, that is all the 36 states right?. I’ve listed the 5 that are not members of APC remaining 31. So, I have laid out the ground while they would be supporting Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu . And maybe the biggest one that you want me to talk about and I’ve not mentioned is probably the Minister of Federal Capital Territory. Mr Nyesom Wike. In Rivers State, APC is the ruling party but, Minister Wike is the National Leader of the PDP.

Even in his own home state of Rivers, all of his preferred candidates, except maybe one or two house of assembly members are all on the APC platform. So, his decision to support APC is basically supporting his own home-grown candidates so, there’s nothing strange there.

So, going through around the country like I just did, there’s nothing strange in what is happening. Although those governors and the minister are not in APC but they are supporting APC, I think I’ve made a very compelling argument why they should be supporting APC or why they are supporting APC. So, that is that in a nutshell. It happens all the time.

Even in America where we copied our democracy from, if you remember very well when Trump came into power in 2016 and was there till 2020, we saw friction in the Republican Party. And a lot of the senators and some of them were pushed out. When Trump was trying to come back into power in 2024, we saw huge numbers of traditional republicans go on offensive against him and actively promoted the Democratic Party. And that is in America where we copied our democracy from. So, it’s happening. It happens all over the world.

Even in Parliamentary system, we see alliances across parties in order to build a majority government. There are many kinds of horse trading that go on, even people that you think will never support one another, in order to get the majority of the Parliamentary seats, the ruling party is always negotiating, giving them some kind of ministerial appointments, so that the minority can join them and give them support, so, that they can form a coalition government, so to speak.

So, what is happening is not peculiar, and hopefully what I have laid out now is compelling enough.

In Osun State, and all other states that are ‘cooperating’ with the ruling APC, they have their own Senate and House of Representatives candidates. The same situation applies in Kwara State, where the PDP also has its own reps and Senate candidates. Do you foresee any potential confusion on Election Day?

Again, every politics is local, I will not pretend to know the details of the local politics in Osun State, but I can certainly comment on that of Kwara State. You mentioned that PDP is supporting President Asiwaju in Kwara, I will say that is a big fallacy. I will say that is a big lie. Who is the leader of PDP in Kwara State? Between you and me, I will say it is former Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki. I have yet to see him come out on a national platform to say ‘I am supporting President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’.

So, therefore to say that PDP in Kwara is supporting President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, I will say it’s a fallacy. Of course, everybody wants to play politics, there are individuals that are on the platform of PDP that may know that they are ordinarily not popular on their own and would like to ride on the popularity of the president, therefore they would like to attach themselves to the president and do a co-traveling partner and say ‘we want to support the president, we are supporting the president’.

You and I know, very well that majority of the people in Kwara State cannot discern between candidates. They would support parties. When you look at the campaign rallies in Kwara State, they are generally not around a specific candidate except for APC in Kwara State as a ruling party and because we have a market that we can sell in the name of our hardworking and performing governor, His Excellency, Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq, the Sardauna of Ilorin, we can go out there and do rallies around our governor and say ‘be ri’se wa, be e ri’se wa, igboro ni e wo, e wo ‘gboro wo be e ri’se wa’.

So, Alade has really done marvelous job, so, we can use his name to market our party in Kwara State. But by and large, 80 percent of the rallies, 80 percent of the campaigns in the state is on the party platform either PDP or APC. So, if you’re busy chanting ‘PDP, PDP’ how do you expect, seeing people that you’re chanting ‘PDP PDP’ to on the Election Day have 3 ballots in their hands; a presidential ballot, a senate ballot and a house of reps ballot and say, ‘okay, on this two, we’ll select PDP but on this one, select APC’. Our voters are not that educated enough to make that choice. So, shouting Tinubu on the platform of PDP, 80 percent of the PDP followers in Kwara State are strictly PDP, they don’t want anything to do with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

So, anybody shouting ‘PDP’ and chanting ‘President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’, it is a fallacy. And of course we know the ADC people are not doing rainbow and we know NDC people are not doing any rainbow. So, yes, the national leader of PDP has said that they should go and support the president, but the leader of the party in the state is yet to publicly proclaim so. And the candidates on their platforms, only a few of them, well one prominent one has attached himself to the president because he needs that attachment to win.  Therefore when the election is over, if you’re standing in line by 2 pm, you’re allowed to vote and after 2 pm when the votes are completed and tallied, hopefully by 4 pm the result will be glaring and it will all be over when His Excellency, Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq would be declared victorious in Kwara Central senate election insha Allah. (See the video here) https://web.facebook.com/share/v/1D9qug1bFy/

The current catchphrase being promoted by the PDP in Kwara Central is ‘12 before 1’. This was inspired by a famous statement made during a television interview by Senator Salihu Mustapha, who claimed that by 12:00 pm on the Election Day, it must have been very clear that he has emerged as an early winner.

Additionally, Senator Mustapha declared a few days ago that he would be working for the president’s re-election. While Dr. Bukola Saraki has not made an official statement in this regard, Senator Mustapha has already explicitly declared his support. Given this context, what is your take on the ‘12 before 1’ catchphrase?

My brother, Senator Salihu Mustapha is a lawmaker of the Federal republic of Nigeria and as a lawmaker who was involved in the legislative process that led to the passage of the electoral act of 2026, he should know the law of the land.

If you’re in line by 2 pm, they have to allow you to vote even if the voting lasts till 10 pm because of the number of people. Therefore, technically speaking, no votes can be counted before 2 pm. If the senator is saying the election will be over by 12 pm or by 1 pm that means either he is advocating for some kind of breach of our electoral system or he’s telling whoever that the laws of the land should be flagrantly disregarded. And both of those situations will not help our democracy.

So, being a lawmaker he should know the law, and if he knows the law and he’s still saying something contrary to the law, that means he’s not trying to uphold the constitution of Nigeria to which he swore an oath to uphold. So, that is my own take on that. The ‘12 before 1’ or whatever you call it is nonsensical because it’s not grounded in reality neither is it grounded in law. It’s just a catchphrase similar to ‘I’ll give everybody ice cream’.

 And that is not what our politics should be about. 

So, we encourage everybody to go out in large numbers. We expect everybody to turn out in large numbers and participate. If it means staying in line till 6 pm, 7 pm, 8 pm whatever it takes to make you cast your ballot and be counted, please do so.

Trying to truncate the electoral process at noon or 1 pm is tantamount to breaking the laws of the land or at best intimidating our voters to not come out and participate fully. And because the laws guarantee that every polling station should stay open at a minimum to 2 pm before they close the voting schedule and if you’re in line by 2 pm and if it takes up to 10 pm to cast your ballot, so be it. They’re supposed to count everybody in line as of 2 pm. So, no vote counting can start before 2 pm. So, I don’t know which result he’s expecting by noon but it is not going to happen.

(See the video here) https://web.facebook.com/share/v/1Ch2CoNkCB/

Many have said that your party, the APC may not earn electoral victory because a good number of your party members are aggrieved. And they make reference to the G15 and some who are not making this public but are inwardly unhappy. Do you see this as a major factor that can affect your party negatively?

You said a good number of our party members are aggrieved. I will please like you to withdraw that statement because it is not true. Are some of our members aggrieved? The answer is ‘yes’ but not similar to the scenario of 2023 where some of our party members went to other parties. And even in this 2027, the aggrieved or the people that you’ve mentioned are not even as many as that of 2023. Now, with every contest, there will always be winners and losers and like I said in my long write-up that I would never be the one to castigate anyone for wanting to advocate for his or her right. But we are allowed to use the party mechanism to address such issues.

The people we are talking about are still wearing the jersey of APC? Is that not so? I think the answer is ‘yes’. And you must have read in newspapers and on social media within the past two or three days about reconciliation efforts being made by a group headed by Professor Oba Abdulraheem that comprises eminent Kwarans like Pastor John Dara, like Hon Olododo, like Dr. James Kolo Jiya, like Hon Nasiru Ayinla, like Alhaji Abdulraheem Adedoyin Oloriewe, and others I cannot recall their names fully, Dr. Adewumi Oko is there as well, I think I’m missing a very important name at this time but anyways, the point is that they’re meeting with all sides, they are meeting with everybody and getting in touch with people who are aggrieved because they were not able to get party nominations and the National Chairman of the party came on the national scene and spoke loud and clear to everyone that decisions made on party nominations in Kwara were grounded and rooted in equity, fairness and justice.

Just to let everyone know, there was this fallacy going around that the governor singlehandedly sat somewhere and brought out 35 names from his pocket. But we heard loud and clear that the National Chairman said the national leadership made the decision in the best interest of the party. He made a very sound argument for the gubernatorial seat to go to Kwara North for equity, fairness and justice. And then on the senate seat in Kwara North, they have arrangement of rotation, after two it goes to the other side. The party ensures that this was done. And when you come to Kwara Central, obviously, many governors when they’re stepping down, they get to enjoy the right of first refusal as the leader of the party.

Unlike what happened in 2019 in this state, when a sitting governor was given a senate nomination only for this to be taken away just a few days later and recall also the outcome of what it did to that party.

And then when we come to Kwara South, we all said ‘Igbomina lo kan’ and because in our local parlance we understand ‘laare, buure’ our equity, fairness, justice is what we all live by. And therefore, the senate seat after 12 years in the Ibolo Zone, it needed to come to the Igbomina zone and the party did that for us. And I read somewhere and I’m not totally sure of how true it is, I think we are the only party, don’t let me say we are the only party because I don’t want to speak in absolute since I do not know, of the major parties I think APC is the only one that has a female national assembly candidate.

Our other opposition parties, the main opposition party do not have one. That means we are about inclusion. And also, I think we have about five female candidates for the house of assembly out of 24. Five divide by 24 if my Maths is not rusty it is close to 20 percent or over 20 percent. Meanwhile the opposition I learned do not have any. So, if women are our large voting block, we know which party has prioritized equity, fairness and justice both to ethnic makeup, both to religious makeup, and as well as both to gender diversity and equity.

Therefore, APC is the only party that is truly progressive in Kwara State.

To be specific, you are saying that the reported or obvious wrangling within APC would be resolved and it would not be a major challenge to the party in 2027?

I am not clairvoyant. I did not say that it would not be an issue. I’m saying, as a party, we recognized that not everybody in the party is happy, therefore, as a party we are working towards meeting with and reconciling with those that have one issue or the other.

Mallam Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq the Executive Governor of Kwara State, the Chairman of Nigeria Governors’ Forum, the Sardauna of Ilorin emirate is someone that has a very good listening ear. People have met with him, you saw him visit Professor Oba even though the professor said their committee is organic, they saw things going not so well, they decided to fix it on their own. But the governor recognizing that there are people doing some heavy lifting somewhere, decided to pay a courtesy visit to acknowledge their effort. And he has used many other avenues. We all read on social media or newspapers, while it is not official yet, we saw the division between the governor and my very good brother, Alhaji Moshood Mustapha and they have buried their differences.

At least publicly, I would allow the two of them to speak specifically to what is going on. But at least to us outside looking in, we’ve seen a coming together of some sort. And we’ve seen many of the aggrieved G15 that you mentioned Hon Ndakene, I’ve attended some programmes with him already on the platform of the APC. He even did a welcome ceremony for our gubernatorial candidate, SYD in Shonga. He’s mobilizing his people in support of the party. So, those are some of the aggrieved people. I can say my current sitting senator in Kwara South, Senator Lola Ashiru, I have not seen him do any kind of public noise against the party. And I believe that he is working with the party or will be working for the party if he’s not currently doing so. So, therefore, the G15 aspect has so much crumbled because some of the people that thought the arrangement was to help them fight a common cause of getting in front of the president and negotiating for a gentle exit so to speak figured out very quickly that some people had other desires and may even have had arrangement pre-dating them coming together in G15 probably as far as two, three years ago.

 So, other people were already actively shopping for other platforms or even had agreement with other platforms but needed to use the cover of the G15 for their own personal ambition. And the others quickly saw that ‘this is not what we signed up for’ and they are trying to retrace their steps if they have not already retraced their steps.

 Of course, we do need to reach out to them to have frank conversations that the house that we built together belongs to all of us and no one should decide to pour kerosene or petrol on it and try to set the house on fire. That the seat in the house that you want, you’re not able to sit on it today means that if the house is still intact, tomorrow that seat may still be intact for you to sit on. But if you burn down the house, guess what, whether today or tomorrow, the possibility of you sitting on that seat is exactly what?, zero.

Many would have ordinarily expected that you will be one of the people complaining but you have not at any point in time complained. You have sought party nomination for three consecutive times and yet you didn’t get nominated. And you never complained. Why?

Well, I can say it has to do with two or three factors. One, only God gives and only God takes away. And, if you are chasing something for the benefit of the people, if your intention is to do it for the benefit of the people, I think you will react in certain ways that others that may be doing it for selfish reasons or selfish ambition will not do. So, that is one.

Second, for those that have true faith in God which Muslims call ‘Imani’, I’m not an Alfa but, Almighty Allah asks for total surrender. There’s nothing called partial surrender. I cannot only surrender to the will of Allah when it’s favourable to me or when the going is good. We read in the Bible or in the Qur’an the story of Job that has many things and Satan said that ‘I want you to curse God’ and he said ‘No’ and he said let me go and test this guy and he took away everything. And he knew that God giveth and God taketh and at the end of it, God replaced everything that he had lost in multiple folds.

 And in the Qur’an and the Bible, we always preach patience as being a virtue. And in the Qur’an we said ‘Eni to ba ni suuru, kii pofo’. So, those two things, having the ultimate belief in Almighty Allah and having the patience that when you’re chasing something and you’re not ready, or it did not come to your way, it’s because Almighty Allah has the best design. Either he felt that is not the right time yet because God has a way of telling you to prepare. When Prophet Muhammed (SAW) wanted to go on pilgrimage or go on Hijra, Almighty Allah told him everything that he needed to do to prepare for the journey. I’m sure on the first day, he would have wanted to just jump up and go. And if he had done that, that Hijra would have been an epic failure because he did not know where he was going, he did not know what he was going to encounter on the way there and all of those things. But Almighty Allah knew and told him everything that he needed to do.

The same thing when Jesus Christ was getting ready for his own mission. Almighty God prepared him accordingly in his majestic entrance to Jerusalem. He did not get any kind of donkey, he gave him the best kind of donkey which in today’s parlance would have been the best kind of limo. Because Almighty God wanted to show how his son is a simple man, he is also somebody that is worthy of emulation. And almost all the prophets in our holy books, they have humble beginnings but later rose to positions of emulations. And only God made that happen and when you look at their journeys, it was because Almighty Allah has prepared them. So, for whatever is happening, I believe it is Almighty Allah preparing me for what eventually is to come. Although I may not know what is to come, but I know Almighty Allah has something great in stock for me. 

Tell us your name, advise your party members ahead of the 2027 general election and talk about party supremacy and party loyalty?

Well, Iam Engineer Nurudeen Adeyemi Balogun, an APC chieftain. I want to take this time to urge our members to turn up for the upcoming election in large numbers, I mean in large numbers. Both in support of the president , Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as well as other candidates  in the state especially our gubernatorial candidate, Rt. Hon Salihu Yakubu Danladi. That you may disagree with a particular person, is okay but in Nigerian politics, we know that the vote belongs to the party not to an individual.

So, therefore, party loyalty demands that 100 percent of our votes, that of our friends, family members, every single member of the party should ensure that he or she mobilizes not less than 10, 20, 50, 100 others that may not be a card-carrying members of APC because this current  administration under Mallam Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq has prioritized the welfare of our civil servants, has prioritized the youth in terms of human capital development whether we are talking about various programmes and interventions through Kwarapreneur, KWASSIP , prioritizing our widows, prioritizing our elderly, prioritizing our traders, interest- free loans, grants and of course we have to talk about the infrastructure. The changing face of our state, especially the renewal agenda of the capital is real and it’s with us. Those that were here in the state 10 years ago can see what the state has transformed itself into now.

Also, when we look at equity, fairness and justice, we know that this administration has stretched its various developments across all wards in the state. Some people do not know this because they see the development within the capital, they do not realize the amount of kilometers of roads that has been done outside of the capital.

Kwara South and Kwara North by and large have over 300 kilometers of road that has been done. And let’s just say between 100 to 200 million per kilometers of road, you can see the range of investment that has gone into those areas. And of course, our various UBEC interventions, almost every school has been renovated. Of course we cannot do everything at a go, but by and large we can see progress.

And of course in the health sector, if you have a doctor today that is looking for job, it takes less than five minutes to get the doctor employed in Kwara State because we are in dire need of doctors and we’re hiring them as quickly as we can find them, the government is also providing upgraded infrastructure for them to work and have a good working environment. So, all of those things are ongoing.

So, therefore, if you’re truly a member of APC, this is the only platform and if you’re not a party member as well, this is the only platform that you should vote for in order to ensure that what is going on continues. We have a developmental template, a master plan for the state as a whole for the first time in a long time. And also, we are planning for the future by looking at other areas that you can have smart cities, smart classrooms and smart schools; everything smart, everything green, we’re trying to be environmentally conscious.

And you can see the impact of this administration even in simple things as working very hard to minimize the impact of global warming. Almost every year, before we usually heard about large numbers of people being flood victims but this year, we can see that we have very little of those. That is because the government has taken active steps to dredge* many of our rivers, desilt them to allow large volumes of water to be able to be retained without threatening the neighboring communities.

So, all of these things, bad news spread very far but good news takes a while to go. And if we do not talk about them, people may not know. That good things are happening is not accidental. And yes, we do have challenges in security but when we look at the president creating four more divisions, going from eight army divisions to 12 army divisions and one of those divisions coming to Kwara we know it’s not accidental. And we’ve seen so many army battalions, regiments being deployed across the three senatorial districts of Kwara State. That is not accidental, that is intentional leadership from our governor. 

And you’ll agree with me that yes, earlier on in the year maybe from January to April and May, we had cases of kidnappings almost every day and all of those things but these days you’ll agree with me that 90 percent of those things have likely been resolved. Of course, every single one of our citizens kidnapped is bad news, any single one of our citizens that dies in the hands of the bad guys is bad news. But there are evil people in the world and every society has crimes. No society is crime-free. What we should aim for is to make those crimes rare, we should not normalize them. And I think we’re getting to a place where by and large in Kwara State, people will feel safer again and we’re going back to the norm of where crimes are not of a normal occurrence anymore.

So, therefore, vote APC, APC all the way. Vote President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for the renewed hope agenda and of course support all candidates of the APC under His Excellency, Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq’s leadership (See the video here) https://web.facebook.com/share/v/19fCb5WGrZ/

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