Preliminary Observations on Adeleke’s Re-election

Let me instantly confess that I was delighted Senator Ademola Adeleke won the August 15, 2026 governorship election in Osun state. The Accord candidate outscored Chief Bola Oyebamiji of the All Progressives Congress (APC) by 511,067 votes to 444,815, coasting home with a margin of 66,252. Dr Najeem Salam of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) came a distant third with 17,180 votes, leading to insinuations that his party folded for Accord to stop the APC. Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, the ADC leader in the state, would rather eat grass than see the APC reclaim the governorship. But many in the APC would rather take Salam’s tally as core evidence that Aregbesola is a political lightweight.

Why was I delighted Adeleke won? One, I believe in a competitive democracy with multiple choice. The APC already controls 31 of the 36 states. The entire north, minus Bauchi, is APC. The entire south, minus Anambra, Abia, Oyo and Osun, is APC. At this rate, the whole country would be painted in APC colours. I stopped watching the German league because Bayern Munich were always sure to win it. The Scottish league is all about Celtic. For me, there is no joy watching a one-sided affair. APC members and supporters are not complaining though. They would be glad to have all the states in their party. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was in that mode until the tables turned in 2015.

Two, I was completely irritated by APC’s impunity prior to the election. They were walking on people’s heads. They let it be known that they would do anything, foul or fair, to uproot Adeleke. Accord leaders were arrested and detained by the police a few weeks before the election. Alhaji Teslim Igbalaye, secretary to the state government (SSG), was arrested for “vote buying”. That was a new one to me. How do you prove vote buying two weeks before voting? Wonderful. One of Osun state’s bank accounts was also frozen by the EFCC. If the APC is subjected to similar scrutiny during elections, many of us would not complain. But why is the opposition the only one on the radar?

Three, without prejudice to his performance as governor, I am happy that Adeleke has refused to tone down his dancing to please his critics. I love it when people are comfortable in their own skins in an age when people-pleasing is the in-thing. A lot of people have lost themselves trying to please the crowd. Social media has become the death of many young people who are body-shamed and bullied. People have to pretend to be what they are not and try to paint a fake picture of themselves just to belong. Adeleke is real. He does not care a hoot. He has been derided for his dancing for years but he keeps moving his feet and body. For all you care, he is burning more calories than his critics.

That said, I have also observed with amusement some conversations around the election. I saw read many comments that made me ask the question: “Why are we like this in this country?” If you believe all that you read, the Osun governorship was a battle between good and evil, hawks and doves, saints and sinners — with Accord being the light and the APC being the darkness. All the violence and vote buying were perpetrated by only the APC, while Accord was squeaky clean — according to the WhatsApp narratives. “APC brought money, people collected it and voted for their conscience.” Those on the ground know that both parties engaged in vote buying and violence.

After he was declared winner, Adeleke re-affirmed his endorsement of President Bola Tinubu of the APC for a second term in office. Anger erupted elsewhere. They said Adeleke had betrayed “the Nigerian masses” who voted for him as a sign of protest against “economic hardship” in the land. From the videos I saw on Twitter (that’s what I still call it), most of those complaining were obviously not from Osun and did not vote in the governorship election. I was wondering why they were crying more than the bereaved. If the “suffering masses” opt to vote for the man that “inflicted economic hardship” on them, how is that my problem? Who has headache, who is swallowing paracetamol?

Many people still don’t want to agree that politics, as the maxim goes, is local. A state can vote PDP in a governorship election and APC in presidential. A zone can vote APC in senatorial and PDP in governorship. There are many things in the mix when it comes to electoral politics: partisanship, primordial sentiments, war chest, etc. Sometimes, people vote by default setting: “My own is my own”. A Yoruba proverb says you can’t have a daughter with a shapely waist and choose to put beads on the waist of another person’s daughter. A random study of Nigeria’s electoral history — even as recent as 2023 — will show that voters can indeed choose different parties for different offices.

But this begs the question: will Osun voters actually support the APC in the 2027 presidential election? Nobody can say for sure. Osun politics has consistently been one of the most competitive in Nigeria in many election cycles. In 2019, APC’s Muhammadu Buhari, a sitting president, defeated PDP’s Atiku Abubakar by 347,634 to 337,377 votes — a margin of just 10,000 votes. It got more interesting in 2023 as Atiku defeated Tinubu, supposedly the homeboy, by 354,336 to 343,945. The 10,000-vote gap does not tell the whole story — Atiku, with the full backing of Adeleke (then of the PDP), won in 20 of the 30 LGAs. Adeleke proved to the APC that he was the biggest politician in Osun. 

We can even go as far back as 2015. Buhari defeated PDP’s Goodluck Jonathan by 383,603 to 249,929. That was not a walkover. In 2011, Osun was the only state in southern Nigeria that Jonathan did not win. He would have equalled President Olusegun Obasanjo’s feat of winning the 17 southern states in 2003. No other candidate has recorded that sweeping regional victory in our history, north or south. Jonathan’s failure in Osun in 2011 was attributed to Aregbesola, who had become governor via an election petition. The PDP had been deriding him as a court-made governor, so he wanted to prove to them that he was actually on the ground. But can Aregbesola prove another point in 2027?

In the last three governorship elections, Adeleke has more than shown that he has the strongest support base in the state. In 2018, Chief Adegboyega Oyetola was declared winner by a margin of 482 votes. The rumour in town was that Adeleke had indeed won by 6,000 votes but APC strategists found a way of getting INEC to cancel some results and declare the election inconclusive. The APC did a deal with Senator Iyiola Omisore, then of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), got the EFCC off his back and his seized passport was returned to him. That clearly deal gave Oyetola the edge in the supplementary election. Adeleke can claim to have won the 2018, 2022 and 2026 elections.

Ironically, the brains behind the 2018 magic have now fallen out with the APC hierarchy and have found themselves in political wilderness, although some of them have nestled in the ADC. The long and short of it, therefore, is that the Osun electorate (not “electorates”, as Nigerian grammar) can be said to have a mind of its own. Assuming that the voters would opt for Tinubu in 2027 is sort of a gamble, even though conventional wisdom suggests that the election might follow primordial — rather than partisan — lines. There were over one million votes in the state governorship election and Osun is a classic swing state. That massive vote bank must look very alluring to Tinubu and Atiku.

My final observation, or question, for now is: where did Tinubu really stand on Adeleke? On the surface, he looked neutral, having ordered the EFCC to unfreeze the state’s account. Chief Nyesom Wike, the FCT minister, also said the president would have sent him to Osun if he really wanted to win. It appears Wike sees himself as omnipotent — an attribute we usually reserve for God. But the deployment of soldiers to Osun for the election — something only the commander-in-chief can do — and the way they intimidated Accord supporters would tend to contradict the neutrality claim. I am genuinely lost on how neutral Tinubu was, but Adeleke appears fully pleased. That should settle it.

AND FOUR OTHER THINGS…

VOTE SUBSIDY

Alhaji Atiku Abubakar dropped a banger on Thursday: he will restore petrol subsidy if he is elected president next year. This should resonate well with ordinary voters who can point to higher petrol prices as the reason for the rising cost of living. Atiku used to classify subsidy as fraud but now says it is the removal that is a fraud. Confused? Don’t be: the ADC presidential candidate wants to win an election and what better way to connect with the grassroots than to make this earthshaking promise even if he does not intend to restore the subsidy? If I were Atiku, I would further promise to make $1 equal to N1. That is what millions of people want to hear and it will surely win plenty votes. Politics.

UNCENSORED CENSUS

Dr Paul Enenche, senior pastor of Dunamis International Gospel Centre, has called for a census to determine the number of Christians and Muslims in Nigeria. He was reacting to comments by Sheikh Sani Yahaya Jingir, the Islamic cleric who said Muslims would use their numbers to re-elect a Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket. Incidentally, religion was removed from the census questionnaire in 1992 because of Nigeria’s religious tension. Ethnicity was omitted in 2006 because of the supremacy battle among the country’s biggest ethnic groups. I don’t know what big purpose religion will serve but I support Enenche’s proposal as long as no one will reject the outcome if it doesn’t favour them. Deal?

NAIRA RAIN

The three tiers of government shared N3.007 trillion for July 2026 — the highest ever in nominal terms. This was about N500 billion more than the June share. The federal government got N1.14 trillion while states and LGAs received  N943.35 billion and N673.64 billion respectively. Oil-producing states shared an additional N243.47 billion as 13 percent derivation. So what? This would be good news if it translates to more paved roads, more hospital beds, equipment and drugs, more libraries and laboratories in secondary schools, and more clean water. It is the duty of every citizen to put the leaders under pressure to deliver the goods. Action!

NO COMMENT

The speed with which the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) sacked the technical crew of the Super Falcons after Nigeria failed to win WAFCON and were eliminated from the 2027 Women’s World Cup was fishy and alarming. The NFF also quickly set up a “fact-finding committee” made up entirely of football people without an independent management expert to act as a third eye. What is fact finding? What facts are they going to find? The Super Eagles failed to qualify for two FIFA World Cups in a row and the Golden Eaglets last played at the U-17 World Cup in 2019. Just when you thought it was the NFF itself that should be sacked, the subject has turned itself to the predicate. Hahahaha…