Former Ogun State Commissioner for Health and daughter of ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, Iyabo Obasanjo, has explained why she defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
Obasanjo, who recently returned to active politics after about 15 years, insisted that she was neither pressured nor persuaded by the APC to join the party ahead of the 2027 general elections in Ogun State.
“APC never approached me… I made a choice to join. So, to kind of say, oh, APC pressured me to join and things like that, there was never anything,” she said while speaking on Frontline, a current affairs programme on Eagle 102.5 FM, Ilese Ijebu.
She explained that her decision to leave the PDP was based on personal analysis and discomfort within the party.
“For me, the primary reason was that I left (PDP) because I wasn’t comfortable in the party,” she stated.
Iyabo disclosed that she had earlier considered leaving but refrained because her father was still a chieftain of the PDP at the time. Now that he no longer belongs to any political party, she said she felt freer to make her move without misinterpretation.
She also criticized what she described as transactional politics within the PDP, alleging that party leaders only reached out to her during election periods for mobilization support.
“I’m not comfortable being part of an organization that I left and nobody cared to find out why,” she said, recounting how a call from the presidency came only during election season seeking her assistance.
She added that she has no regrets over her defection and ruled out any possibility of returning to the PDP, arguing that politics should be about caring for and carrying people along rather than using them for electoral gains.
“And if you can’t care for people in your own leadership team, how can you care for the ordinary person on the street?” she asked.
