CLOSE-UP: Nasir Ayilara Ex-INEC REC, Saraki’s Former ‘Mr. Fix-It’, Registered APC Member at Centre of Legal Offensive Against Saliu Mustapha’s PDP Ticket
Dr. Nasir Olarewaju Ayilara, a former Resident Electoral Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has suddenly emerged at the centre of the raging controversy over the Kwara Central senatorial ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), despite having resigned from the party in November 2025 and subsequently registered as a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in April, 2026.
Ayilara, a former close political associate and private electoral consultant to former Senate President Bukola Saraki, is now being touted in some political circles as a factional PDP candidate for the same Kwara Central seat for which incumbent Senator Saliu Mustapha has been nominated.
The development has raised questions within political circles in Kwara, particularly over Ayilara’s current political status and how a politician said to have formally left the PDP and registered with the APC could simultaneously lay claim to a PDP senatorial ticket.
The controversy intensified on Saturday after social media platforms became awash with reports portraying Ayilara as a factional PDP senatorial candidate.
Several of the reports were circulated by media influencers sympathetic to the Kwara State Government, further fuelling suspicions that there is more to the unfolding legal and political battle than meet the eye.
FROM INEC UMPIRE TO SARAKI'S ELECTORAL STRATEGIST
Long before the current controversy, Ayilara had built a profile spanning electoral administration, academia and partisan politics.
He served as a Resident Electoral Commissioner at INEC and completed his five-year tenure at the commission. During his INEC career, Ayilara served in several states and acquired extensive experience in election administration — an expertise that would later become valuable when he returned to Kwara politics.
Ayilara holds a PhD in Management and Human Capital Development and has also been associated with the National Open University of Nigeria as a scholar and researcher, with interests covering electoral systems, governance and political participation.
But it was after leaving INEC that he became increasingly visible within the Saraki political establishment. Ayilara became one of Saraki's most trusted hands on electoral matters and functioned for years as a private consultant to the former Senate President.
Within sections of the Saraki political establishment, he reportedly earned the reputation of an electoral “Mr. Fix-It” — a behind-the-scenes strategist whose knowledge of election administration was considered valuable to the political machinery.
His relationship with Saraki was said to have become particularly important in the build-up to the 2019 general elections.
THE 2019 CONTROVERSY
However, the relationship between the two men reportedly collapsed after the 2019 elections.
Highly placed sources familiar with developments within the Saraki political establishment told Kwara Reporters that Ayilara and the former Senate President parted ways under controversial circumstances following the PDP's poor outing in Kwara in the 2019 general elections.
Saraki lost his Kwara Central senatorial seat in the election while the PDP also lost the governorship and other major contests in the state as the “OTOGE” political movement swept through Kwara.
After the dust settled on the 2019 electoral defeat, some members of Saraki's inner circle accused Ayilara of betraying the former Senate President allegedly for mismanaging substantial funds entrusted with him for the PDP electoral operations.
Since then till now, Ayilara became increasingly distant from Saraki after the polls and did not provide what some members of the political establishment considered a satisfactory account of the expenditure.
This medium has not independently verified the allegations, and there is no suggestion that any court has found Ayilara guilty of financial wrongdoing in connection thereof.
Nevertheless, sources said the disagreement effectively ended what had once been a close working relationship between Saraki and his former electoral strategist.
From being one of the trusted technical hands around the Saraki establishment, Ayilara gradually became estranged from the political family.
AYILARA QUITS PDP
His eventual separation from the PDP became formal in November 2025. Ayilara resigned his membership of the party in a letter submitted to Alhaji Adio Idiayan, his local party leader in Oju-Ekun Sarumi ward.
His exit came during a wave of resignations that hit the Saraki-led Kwara PDP. Among prominent politicians who left the party around the period were former Minister of Transport Isa Bio Ibrahim, Alh. Aliyu Abubakar Ibrahim, Zanna Kaiama, Jagaban Yashikira, and Talban Okuta and several other political figures across Kwara.
They were all received personally into the APC by the leader of the party in the state, Gov. Abdulrahman Abdulrazak, CON at the Ahmadu Bello Way's Seat of Kwara State Government.
FROM PDP TO APC
Ayilara subsequently registered as a member of the APC during the party's membership registration exercise in his Oju-Ekun/Zarumi Ward in Ilorin West, according to sources familiar with the exercise.
That development is now one of the most politically significant aspects of the controversy surrounding his purported PDP senatorial candidature.
As of the time of filing this report, no information has emerged showing that Ayilara subsequently resigned his APC membership or formally returned to the PDP.
Neither has any resignation letter from the APC surfaced publicly.
This raises the question now reverberating across Kwara political circles: How did a politician who resigned from the PDP and registered with the APC suddenly emerge as a purported factional candidate of the PDP?
THE SALIU MUSTAPHA FACTOR
The question has assumed greater significance because of the emergence of Senator Saliu Mustapha as the PDP candidate for Kwara Central.
Mustapha, the incumbent senator representing the district, recently joined the PDP following his exit from the APC and secured the opposition party's nomination to seek another term in the National Assembly.
His emergence dramatically altered the political calculations in Kwara Central, where Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq is also Mustapha's main challenger for the 2027 contest.
The PDP ticket has since become the subject of litigation involving a faction of the party. It is against this background that Ayilara's name has suddenly resurfaced.
A CANDIDATE FROM THE OTHER PARTY?
The latest twist came when reports began circulating on social media identifying Ayilara as a factional PDP candidate for Kwara Central.
The reports quickly gained traction, with several Kwara-based political media platforms and influencers sympathetic to the ruling APC amplifying the claim.
For many, however, Ayilara's reported APC membership presents an obvious contradiction.
So, the biggest question is no longer about Ayilara's past. It is about his present.
Is Nasir Ayilara currently a member of the APC or the PDP? And if he remains a registered APC member, on what political and legal basis is he now being presented as a factional PDP senatorial candidate?
Those questions could become central to the unfolding battle over the Kwara Central PDP ticket.
For now, the former INEC commissioner who once operated largely behind the scenes has suddenly found himself directly under the political spotlight.
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