Glass Ceiling Shattered: BASA Steps Up as Oyo South’s First Female Senate Hopeful
Saturday, May 2nd, will be remembered in Oyo South as the day politics shifted. Hon. Bolanle Aminat Sarumi-Aliyu, popularly known as BASA, walked into PDP offices and picked up her nomination form for the Oyo South Senatorial District. In that moment, she became the first woman to ever contest the seat. At this point in the race, she remains the only female aspirant. That fact alone redraws the map. For decades, the Senate pathway from Oyo South has been a male-only corridor. BASA just kicked the door open. Her candidacy is more than a personal ambition; it is a challenge to the status quo and a direct message to women and young people across the district that leadership is not reserved by gender, but earned by vision and grit.
The nine local governments of Oyo South now face a defining choice. BASA’s campaign rejects business-as-usual politics, offering instead a brand of leadership anchored in empathy and deep community roots. Her blueprint for the district ties progress to practical, people-first action. She plans to unlock economic empowerment by facilitating access to grants and low-interest credit for traders, artisans, and farmers, ensuring growth starts from the markets and farmlands that sustain the zone. Alongside that, she is placing strong emphasis on education and youth skills acquisition, with vocational training programs designed to equip young people for real opportunities in tech, agribusiness, and skilled trades.
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Healthcare is also central to her agenda, as she intends to champion better-equipped primary healthcare centers and maternal health initiatives that put families first. Her commitment to infrastructural development remains firm, with a pledge to lobby federal intervention for improved roads and stable power supply across the senatorial district.
Above all, she is promising inclusive representation, making sure the voices of the marginalized, from rural communities to women and persons with disabilities, are heard loud and clear on the Senate floor. The purchase of this nomination form is not just paperwork. It is the first step in a journey to reshape Oyo South into a district where representation reflects its people, and progress touches every street. A new era is no longer a slogan here. It is on the ballot.
