The man who never sells his Yes: How Pa Samuel Abejide became Ekiti North’s unbending political conscience
In a politics often measured by cash and convenience, Pa Samuel Alaba Abejide still measures his, by one thing: his word.
In Ajoni Local Council Development Area (LCDA), where market squares double as town halls and every elder knows the weight of a handshake, Abejide’s name carries a quiet authority. He is not the loudest voice at a rally, nor the one flashing convoys through dusty roads. He is the man with the steady smile, the outstretched hand, and a reputation that money has never bent.
His story climbed into the public eye during the crowded scramble for Ekiti’s governorship seat, when more than 30 aspirants lined up to challenge for the All Progressives Congress (APC) ticket. While others shifted allegiance with the wind of offers, Abejide planted himself behind Dr. Kayode Fayemi.
Cash and gifts came calling, but none could buy the stance he had taken.
“Filthy lucre is too small a bait to make me relinquish principle,” people around him recall him saying. He held his ground until Fayemi emerged, a candidate he believed carried the backing of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu — a leader to whom Abejide owes deep respect and loyalty.
That loyalty was not to a man alone, but to a political tradition he believes in: party supremacy, discipline, and continuity.
When Fayemi’s tenure produced the current governor, Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji, Abejide moved without hesitation to the next front. For him, politics is not about personal gain but about ensuring governance does not break its stride. He has spent months moving through market stalls, artisan workshops, elite circles, and remote hamlets across Ekiti North, drumming one message: continuity is how a state finds its pride.
His politics is local and granular. In Ajoni, he is a familiar face to traders counting yams at dawn, to mechanics under tarpaulins, to teachers and farmers who see him not as a distant chieftain but as a neighbor who shows up when trouble hits.
To many, he is the pillar of the All Progressives Congress in the north, a man who lifts the oppressed and never turns away when a ward is in crisis.
Now, with the 2026 governorship race taking shape, Abejide is on the march again. His target is simple: return Governor Oyebanji for a second term. He calls it a fight for stability and development in a state that has for too long been on the fringes of Nigeria’s growth story.
“The drum is beating audibly now,” he tells supporters. “And I say no stone will be left unturned until we resolve it. There is no turning back until the day BAO is inaugurated the second time.”
In Ekiti North, that resolve is being felt. Men who studied under him in party politics say his strength lies in reading people correctly and aligning only with those he trusts to be upright.
He roots left when he must, but once rooted, he is difficult to lure aside. It is why, in a political culture where loyalty is often rented, Abejide’s yes has always meant yes.
For a region yearning to carve a place of pride among Nigeria’s states, that kind of unbending loyalty might be exactly what the drumbeat needs.
