Send someone who actually shows up.

Many Nigerians have yearned, thirsted and hungered for a change, but after all is said and done, they join the bandwagon and vote for the same. That was exactly what went wrong about eight years ago. This time, ask the questions first: why should we send you to Abuja, what do you have in mind for us, what pedigree do you have.

Why should we send you to Abuja?

OTO is very hardworking.

So often we send people to Abuja whose sole interest is the perks of office, people with no idea why they are heading to the red chambers. The person who represents us well must be hardworking.

No godfather sent him. OTO has God for a godfather, is not poor, and is not in politics for what he can take out of it: there is a profitable 9-to-5 waiting for him when politics is done.
Most people sent before now ran name-only businesses, no offices, no staff. He has businesses across states, run profitably, generating employment, without owing banks a dime.
He has never sacked a staff member on account of bad times, not even now, when most companies are complaining.
In business he deals faithfully and honestly: contracts kept going for over twenty years, and loyal customers of twenty-four.

What pedigree do you have?

Oluwasegun Theophilus Oladimeji.

Three names. Their first letters are what Oyo South calls him: OTO.

Quiet but resilient. Tough natured, yet good mannered and compassionate. A firm believer in equity who cannot take part in cheating anybody, and a man with no personal hunger pushing him into politics for what he can take out of it.

Yes, you have brilliant ideas but can you do it? Do you have what it takes? The answer is yes! And yes!

Oluwasegun Theophilus Oladimeji in a navy pinstripe suit

1992/93

Federal University of Technology, Minna

Bachelor's degree, graduated with honours

After NYSC

University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom

Master of Science

He has led delegations from UK universities into tie-up agreements with Nigerian universities:

Cranfield University

with University of Ibadan

Durham University

with Covenant University

University of Portsmouth

with Federal University of Technology, Minna

But who is OTO?

Born in Eruwa 58 years ago to two teachers whose salaries could not always feed the house, OTO read quantity surveying at the Federal University of Technology, Minna, and reached the United Kingdom on an uncle's half-paid tuition and years of back-breaking work for the rest.

What turned the business he built there into a calling was a dream with three assignments: win the war over poverty for yourself, for your family, for your people. The first two are won. The third is why he is on your ballot.

He gives the way he wished someone had given to him: scholarships of 75,000 naira a semester with no cameras invited, and cash gifts to fifty widows this September that he refused to let the party televise.

Read the full story

Where is your structure?

He is not promising one. He already built it.

OTO comes to this race from the Atunluto caucus within the Zenith Labour Party: the Atunluto Group, a grassroots political association founded in Oyo State in March 2024 and focused on the Oyo South Senatorial District. Built as a resilient structure since then, it has grown into a major caucus in the Oyo Zenith Labour Party.

It practises cooperative politics. Members fund and own the structure the way a cooperative thrift works, sponsor candidates from their own ranks, and keep the power to remove them if they underperform.

2024

founded, in March, on the members' own commitment.

800+

members funding and owning the structure together.

5 of 9

LGAs of Oyo South already active, aiming for all nine.

Already running

Interest-free member loans, in 50,000 to 100,000 naira tiers.
WAEC fee support for students.

From the Six Pillars for 2027

Agriculture: farm mechanization, 10 tractors per agrarian LGA.
Healthcare: universal health insurance for 500+ vulnerable people per LGA.
Transport: high-capacity CNG buses.

atunluto.com

When you get there, what do you have in mind for us?

The question most people going to the Senate from Oyo South never answered before they took their seat. Little wonder their four or more years were usually uneventful, and their names are appended to no piece of legislation. So here is the agenda, in writing, before you vote.

State police

A state police bill is already being worked at nationally. OTO will study its provisions and put input into an amendment bill that shores up a viable state policing system. Should it not materialise in this Senate, the thinking below stands ready for its creation or its amendment, by whichever of two routes moves.

Negotiate the caucuses

Sit with senators across the six geopolitical zones, Northern and Southern caucuses jointly, and secure their buy-in before the legislation is ever introduced.
Disabuse the notion that state police would aid secession.
Start with non-lethal force of arms, pistols capped at twelve rounds, with armored personnel carriers for maximum protection of personnel.
Cap the number of recruits per population sample.

Redraft the Civil Defence law

Turn the Civil Defence corps from a national force into six independent regional commands, personnel returning to their regions under a new nomenclature.
Empower them by law to prosecute certain crimes directly, independent of the police.
A Commandant General nominated by the regions in turn, rotating between North and South rather than by ballot, starting from the region opposite the sitting president's zone.
Funded 30 percent by the federation and 70 percent by the states of the zone.
Operationally answerable to each state governor: a standing force every governor can call on when peace is threatened in that state.

Residency over state of origin

Amend the constitution so that where you live and pay your way counts for more than where your grandfather was born.

Anyone who has lived an entire lifetime in a state can claim legal residency there and every benefit that accrues to indigenes.
Their children become naturalized indigenes of that state by virtue of birth.
Eases ethnic tension, engenders patriotism, and turns residents into contributors: if everyone living in Oyo State paid their taxes into Oyo State, the state would be markedly better off.

A secular state, in writing

Amend the constitution to expressly provide for the secularity of the Nigerian state, and take religion out of government policy altogether.

State categorically that no one may govern Nigeria through the tenets of any particular religion, with prescribed punishment for violations, up to impeachment.
Benin Republic, Sierra Leone and Burkina Faso each carry Muslim populations of around 60 percent and none of Nigeria's religious tension, because their constitutions declare the state secular and keep religion a private matter.
Governance by constitution, not by religious laws. Anyone could lead the country, whatever their faith, because faith would carry no weight in office.
Nigeria's constitution carries the opening statement and then laces everything after it with religious innuendo and dogma. The secularity clause belongs directly under that opening line, tied expressly to the article of impeachment.

Six zones, truly federating

Make Nigeria truly a republic and truly federating in spirit and letter, starting from the six geopolitical zones as the federating units.

Each zone free to choose its own name, which takes the air out of unending secessionist agitation.
Each zone controls its own education and its own economy.
The center keeps a single foreign ministry, one Army, immigration, and the Central Bank.
One currency with regional variation: a Biafran Naira equals an Oduduwa Naira equals every other Naira, all bearing the same security features and symbols.

Warranty laws with teeth

Our warranty laws are too weak and inoperable, steeped in the production and service ethics of 1960. Revamp them with punishment and enforcement built in.

A mandatory refund policy with every sale.
A minimum warranty period and a return period per item, across categories.
The chain enforces itself: the end user returns defective goods to the retailer, who by law must refund and pass them back to the distributor, who does likewise all the way to the importer.
When importers know every defective item comes back to them for a refund, they stop going overseas for fake and substandard products.

Institutions that answer to the constitution

An Inspector General of Police, of Customs, of the EFCC swears an oath to assume office, then is left defenceless the moment duty runs against the person who appointed them. That exposure corrupts every such agency. Change the law so their boss is the constitution.

Empower agency heads by law to obey only the constitution of the republic, at all times.
Rewrite the oath: whoever appoints you does so as a servant of the constitution, so any directive contrary to it is ultra vires.
Where an executive is adamant, the office holder writes to the Senate and the judiciary at once, and the judiciary must empanel judges to interpret the bone of contention.
Agencies gain standing to sue the government themselves. A president who knows these scenarios are possible stops treating agencies of government as attack dogs.

And what is an honest senator worth at home?

Not everything requires money. Most of what fails in society fails for lack of planning.

Much of this costs the office nothing but follow-through: connecting opportunities that already exist in the district with investors who are already looking for them.

Scholarships

To deserving students across the district.

Schools renovated

Renovation of schools and classrooms, and provision of teaching aids.

Fertilizer supply

Fighting for adequate fertilizer supply to the Southern district.

Tractor loans

Syndicated loans for tractor purchases, after reorganizing farmers into sectional associations.

Buses rerouted

So every route no longer starts and terminates at the same two spots. Some still run Dugbe to Mokola, but branch into the inner roads people actually live on.

Rail within the city

Investors for rail carriages on existing tracks, now that the NRC has liberalized carriage provision. A short line: Omi-Adio, Apata, Dugbe, Mokola, Bodija.

Multi-level parking

Investors for parking facilities across Ibadan, easing congestion off the roads.

More transformers

Additional transformers to improve electricity supply across the communities of Oyo South.

So what does a senator actually do all day?

People look at the Senate and say the job should be part-time. That is a job-description problem, not a workload problem. The work divides into four measurable segments.

1
Make the laws
Amendment of existing laws, repeal of the ones that have failed, enactment of new ones, and deliberation on the vital issues of national importance.
2
Watch the budget
Scrutiny of the national budget, passage after amendments are proposed, then monitoring of its implementation, including approval of the instruments that make it work, like external and internal borrowing.
3
Fight for the district's share
Constant correspondence and travel: writing state governments, ministries, departments and agencies, asking questions, demanding meetings. If 20,000 tractors are provided in the budget, someone must fight through for the 183 due to Oyo South. Even when allocations are not fully released, the one who fights gets some.
4
Bring the investors
Direct financing of projects with commercial value: the mountain ranges from Idere to Aiyete and Tapa in Ibarapa could open Oyo South to the tourism industry. Every holiday directory lists The Gambia. We have as much here to turn into money.

Now ask: which of these has the current crop done satisfactorily? And if those who did nothing in the House of Representatives are attempting the Senate, ask exactly what they will do differently.

Why should you believe a word of this?

Watch him say it himself.

Every answer on this page is a commitment the candidate makes in his own voice. The campaign is putting that case on film so you can weigh the messenger along with the message, and hold him to every word of it.

The film is coming.

What do we expect from you?

1
Make up your mind
Vote for the Zenith Labour Party across the board in the 2027 election, and for OTO as your senator.
2
Talk to ten
Start talking to others about this opportunity to right past wrongs, and get everyone you convince to talk to at least ten more people each.
3
Volunteer on the trail
Volunteer to help out during the campaign and at the polling units on election day. We need a sea of volunteers.
4
Be financially committed
A campaign that answers to its people must be funded by its people. This one runs the Atunluto way, on the commitment of its own members and not the purse of a godfather. Every contribution, however small, keeps the message moving through all nine LGAs of Oyo South.
5
Commit to the count
Help raise the votes that send this agenda to Abuja.

4,000,000

registered voters in Oyo State, more or less.

1 in 4

is all that consistently shows up.

Three million people sit out every cycle: no confidence in the process, no appetite for a vote-buying charade, no faith it is worth their time. Under BVAS, INEC's Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, the brazen rigging is finished. Nobody thumbprints from a hotel room anymore, and every figure collated must tally with the count posted at the polling unit. This time the campaign will have adequate hands at the units to help guard the result, and even a wrong announcement is a lot easier to overturn at the tribunal. If citizens do their part at the polls, it never gets that far.

The commitment this campaign asks of the district, counted out loud:

1,000,000

votes for the Zenith Labour Party at the Oyo South Senatorial District.

No matter how bad it gets, from this target there is enough to win it.

“…and when they heard of it, it grieved them exceedingly that there was come a man to seek the welfare of the children of Oyo South Senatorial District”