Sanwo-Olu Endorses Deputy Hamzat as APC’s Lagos Governorship Candidate for 2027 in Emotional Succession Ceremony at Marina
Summary
Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu on Monday, April 27, 2026, publicly endorsed his Deputy Governor, Dr. Obafemi Kadri Hamzat, as his preferred successor and the All Progressives Congress candidate for the 2027 Lagos State governorship election. The announcement was made at Lagos House, Marina, following a closed door meeting attended by members of the State Executive Council, the Governors’ Advisory Council, all 57 local government chairmen, and LCDA chairmen a gathering so comprehensive in its representation that it amounted to a formal consensus endorsement rather than a personal preference. The development comes after Hamzat had already secured the backing of President Tinubu’s Chief of Staff Femi Gbajabiamila, former Governor Babatunde Fashola, and other key APC stakeholders effectively positioning him as the consensus candidate of the Lagos political establishment with more than a year before the 2027 elections.
In a moment laden with political symbolism and personal emotion, Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu on Monday lifted the hand of his deputy, Dr. Obafemi Kadri Hamzat, before a room full of party leaders, local government chairmen, and government officials and in doing so, formally anointed the man he described as having been built for this moment since before they both entered government.
Governor Sanwo-Olu endorsed Hamzat at Lagos House, Marina, alongside members of the state executive council and APC leaders. Also present were all 57 local government chairmen, as well as local council development area chairmen. The sheer breadth of the gathering was itself a statement this was not a quiet nod from a sitting governor to a favoured colleague, but a public, structured, and comprehensively attended political investiture.
The announcement followed a closed door meeting at Lagos House, Marina, where Hamzat formally declared his intention to contest the governorship seat before members of the State Executive Council and key party leaders. Also present were members of the Governor’s Advisory Council, including former Minister of State, Defence, Musiliu Obanikoro, and Ganiyu Solomon, among others.
Sanwo-Olu’s Words: From Testimony to Transfer
Sanwo-Olu said Hamzat possesses the capacity, experience, and deep understanding of governance required to lead the state. “At the end of the day, with the consultations we’ve had and it was unanimous in that room the deputy governor is a man who is fit and ready. He has been well prepared for this job,” the governor said.
The governor’s language moved well beyond the customary political endorsement. Describing Hamzat as ready for leadership, Sanwo-Olu said: “This is a Deputy Governor that is worth a Governor from day one. This is a man that has been built for this job, and we believe that he deserves to be given a chance to go and run this State.”
Sanwo-Olu recalled that he and Hamzat used to sit next to each other in former Governor Babatunde Fashola’s cabinet, noting that no cabinet memo would scale through without their input. He described their relationship as having been built on mutual respect, trust, and dignity long before they ran on a joint ticket. He also revealed that when he picked his governorship form eight years ago, he never severed his relationship with Hamzat, who had picked his own governorship form two days earlier a detail that speaks to the depth of a political friendship that predates their shared ticket.
Sanwo-Olu highlighted Hamzat’s experience and working relationship with him over the past seven years, noting his “integrity, loyalty, commitment, and support” as defining qualities. “He is a man who has worked with me at the highest level of integrity, loyalty, commitment, support, and so I feel personally honoured and privileged that he has given me this honour to inform me,” he said.
The governor also credited President Bola Tinubu as the political visionary who shaped their journey together. Sanwo-Olu said: “After the merger meeting, our father and leader, who today is ordained by God to be President of Nigeria, told both of us that he saw a 16 years journey for Lagos.” That framing of a planned, sequenced, two terms succession presents the 2027 transition not as a political contest but as the next chapter in a long-running governance design.
Hamzat: Seven Years, No Spare Tyre
Hamzat, reflecting on his time as deputy governor, said: “Most people refer to Deputy Governors as spare tyres. Deputising Governor Sanwo-Olu in the last seven years, I have never felt or been treated as a spare tyre. The Governor did well in carrying me along as a partner on this journey to build Greater Lagos.”
In a message on his X account, Hamzat wrote: “Today, I am honoured by the endorsement of my governor, my brother and my friend, HE Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu.” He added elsewhere: “We discussed the direction of our state and the work required to move it forward. It remains our shared responsibility to strengthen Lagos and continue delivering better outcomes for our people. I am focused and clear about the work ahead.”
Hamzat was equally clear about the stakes of the 2027 race. He said Nigeria must not fail, expressing confidence in the APC’s prospects at both federal and state levels, describing the party as well-structured and stressing the importance of maintaining its leadership cohesion. He also noted that sustaining the economic reforms of President Bola Tinubu was essential, adding that the party must make the right choice of governorship candidate to preserve stability in Lagos State.
A Convergence of Endorsements
Monday’s endorsement by Sanwo-Olu was the most consequential yet, but it did not arrive in isolation. Sanwo-Olu’s endorsement of Hamzat followed similar endorsements by the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila; former Governor Babatunde Fashola, the Justice Forum members, among others. The day before the Marina ceremony, Hamzat met with Femi Gbajabiamila, Chief of Staff to President Bola Tinubu, as part of ongoing political consultations.
The meeting was attended by several political stakeholders, including the Secretary of the Governors’ Advisory Council, Muti Are; Senator Ganiyu Olanrewaju Solomon; Bode Oyedele; Senator Musiliu Obanikoro; Adekunle Olayinka; and the Chairman of the Lagos State Universal Basic Education Board, Hakeem Shittu.
Senator Ganiyu Olanrewaju Solomon, the political apex leader in Mushin Local Government Area and a member of the Governors’ Advisory Council, also joined Sanwo-Olu to endorse Hamzat as the APC consensus candidate for the 2027 Lagos State governorship election, with the endorsement signalling growing unity within the Lagos APC leadership following high-level consultations.
The development underscores early strategic positioning within the All Progressives Congress as political activities begin to gather momentum ahead of the 2027 general elections.
Analysis
In Lagos State politics, an endorsement by a sitting governor carries a weight that is difficult to overstate. Lagos is not merely the nation’s commercial capital it is the APC’s most important stronghold, the state that bankrolled and incubated the political career of President Bola Tinubu, and a city whose governance model has been held up for decades as the template for what organised, well resourced, and strategically disciplined party politics can produce. When Babajide Sanwo-Olu stands in the presence of all 57 local government chairmen and lifts Kadri Hamzat’s hand, he is not just expressing a preference. He is deploying the full weight of a political machinery that has won every Lagos governorship election for over two decades. The significance of Monday’s events therefore extends well beyond Hamzat’s personal ambition. It is a statement about how Lagos manages political succession and, by extension, how the APC manages the one governance structure it cannot afford to lose ahead of a 2027 election cycle in which federal incumbency already faces significant headwinds. The 16 years vision that Sanwo-Olu attributed to President Tinubu eight years of Sanwo-Olu, eight years of Hamzat is a revealing disclosure. It suggests that the transition being formalised now was not improvised in response to Hamzat’s ambition, but planned at the highest levels of the Lagos political family years before today’s ceremony. That kind of structured succession planning is both the genius and the occasional Achilles heel of Lagos APC politics it produces stability and continuity, but it also tends to resolve questions that should be open contests before the electorate ever gets a vote. Hamzat himself is a serious candidate by any objective measure. A trained engineer with a PhD, former Commissioner for Works, and the serving deputy governor, he has spent seven years in one of the most demanding governance environments in Africa. Sanwo-Olu’s description of him as someone who was never treated as a “spare tyre” who attended every meeting, contributed to every decision, and earned the private admiration of his gubernatorial peers at the Nigerian Governors’ Forum is not mere political flattery. It is a track record. The question that will animate political commentary in the months ahead is whether any challenger will emerge from within or outside the APC to contest what the party’s establishment is clearly determined to present as a consensus. Opposition parties will also be watching closely the PDP’s performance in 2023, while insufficient to unseat Sanwo-Olu, demonstrated that Lagos is not as impregnable as the APC sometimes assumes. For now, however, Monday’s events have made one thing clear: the path from Hamzat’s ambition to the governor’s chair runs through a party structure that has already, emphatically, opened the gate.
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