Former Ogun State Commissioner for Health, Iyabo Obasanjo, has explained the reasons behind her decision to leave the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
Obasanjo, daughter of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, insisted that she was neither pressured nor persuaded by the APC to defect. According to her, the decision was entirely personal and based on her dissatisfaction with the PDP.
She recently returned to active politics after about 15 years and formally joined the APC ahead of the 2027 general elections in Ogun State.
Obasanjo had previously lost her re-election bid in 2011 after being defeated by Gbenga Obadara of the then Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). Following that loss, she relocated to the United States to focus on her academic career, eventually rising to the rank of professor.
Speaking on Frontline, a current affairs programme on Eagle 102.5 FM, Obasanjo said she had considered leaving the PDP earlier but refrained at the time because her father was still a prominent figure within the party.
“APC never approached me… I made a choice to join. So to say APC pressured me to join, there was never anything like that. I analysed the situation. The primary reason was that I left because I wasn’t comfortable in the party,” she stated.
She explained that she did not want her earlier departure to appear as though she was acting against her father while he remained a party chieftain. However, with him no longer affiliated to any political party, she felt free to make her own political decision.
Obasanjo further expressed frustration over what she described as the PDP’s failure to value her contributions. She alleged that party officials only contacted her during election periods to mobilise support, without genuinely engaging her otherwise.
“I’m not comfortable being part of an organisation that I left and nobody cared to find out why,” she said, adding that politics should not be transactional but people-focused.
She stressed that leadership should be about inclusion and caring for members at all levels, arguing that a party that fails to value its own prominent figures cannot effectively connect with the broader electorate.
Obasanjo concluded that she has no regrets about her defection and does not intend to return to the PDP.
