Lagos 2027: Hamzat Takes the Campaign to the People

Lagos 2027: Hamzat Takes the Campaign to the People

With Obanikoro building the machinery and Hamzat increasingly visible across Lagos, the APC is moving from succession politics to a statewide campaign for continuity.

Exclusive to Ekocity | Politics & Governance Desk

The 2027 Lagos governorship race is beginning to acquire the rhythm of a real campaign. For Dr. Obafemi Hamzat, the APC’s governorship candidate, the strategy is increasingly visible: move beyond political endorsements and take the candidacy directly into Lagos’s political, professional and community networks.

In recent months, Hamzat has appeared at consultations with party leaders, visited campaign structures across the state’s senatorial districts and engaged stakeholders as he prepares to succeed Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu.

His July inspection of the Lagos Central senatorial campaign headquarters, for example, brought him together with campaign officials and political leaders, including his running mate, Damilola Sonayon James, and campaign Director-General Musiliu Obanikoro. But the more consequential development may be taking place behind him.

Obanikoro Builds The Machine

Hamzat’s decision to place Senator Musiliu Obanikoro at the centre of his campaign is a calculated political choice. Obanikoro brings decades of experience in Lagos politics, government and electoral organisation. Since his appointment as campaign DG in June, he has been central to consultations with influential Lagos political figures and grassroots constituencies.

The choice suggests that Hamzat’s campaign is attempting to combine two political assets: the candidate’s experience inside government and Obanikoro’s political network outside it. That structure became more formal this month.

The Lagos APC inaugurated a campaign council of more than 1,200 members, with Governor Sanwo-Olu as chairman, Hamzat as deputy chairman and Obanikoro as Director-General. The party says its mobilisation will extend to the state’s wards and 13,325 polling units.

Hamzat’s New Message

Perhaps more revealing is Hamzat’s instruction to his campaign team: campaign with facts, records and measurable achievements. That is an attempt to make 2027 a referendum on the APC’s record in Lagos and nationally rather than simply a personality contest.

For Hamzat, the argument is continuity. For his opponents, the challenge will be to convince Lagos voters that continuity is no longer enough. That is where the election could become genuinely competitive.

Because Lagos is not merely choosing another governor. It is deciding whether the political model that has governed the state since 1999 deserves another four years. And Hamzat is increasingly taking his answer directly to the streets, communities and political structures of Lagos.

The campaign has begun.

Ekocity Politics & Governance Desk

Fawumi Kayode Abiodun
Political Analyst | CEO, Ekocity Media | Publisher, Ekocity Magazine and The Capitol Post