In less than a week, Osun electorates will go to the polls to elect a candidate who will steer the ship of the state for another four years. Over the past few weeks, Osun, the State of the Living Spring, has become a battleground where political broadsides are launched daily, without much restraint or caution, by political actors.
Compared with the 2022 governorship election, it’s clear that the dynamics are markedly different this time around for the two leading parties in the race. While the All Progressives Congress and Accord Party remain central to the contest, the African Democratic Congress (ADC), has emerged as a force capable of upending the calculus entirely, as we witnessed in 2018 when Iyiola Omisore of the Social Democratic Party significantly influenced the outcome of the election in favour of APC at the time.
In 2022, the PDP candidate, Ademola Adeleke, defeated the then-incumbent governor, Gboyega Oyetola of the APC, by a narrow margin of 28,000 votes, buoyed by the strong backing of political gladiators in the state, including Rauf Aregbesola, the only governor in the state’s history to serve two terms, and several strong PDP top guns.
Forty-eight months later, Adeleke has left the PDP for Accord, a party with relatively low grassroots presence, and many of the associates who contributed to his 2022 victory have since jumped ship. Only one of the three PDP senators followed him to Accord; the other two are now with the APC. Three of the nine PDP House of Representatives members have defected to the APC, including Wole Oke, who is serving his sixth term in the Green Chamber.
Rauf Aregbesola, now National Secretary of the ADC, is drumming up support for his party’s candidate, Najeem Salaam, a former Speaker of the Osun State House of Assembly. Salaam is an indigene of Ejigbo, one of the largest local government areas in Osun State by voter count. Meanwhile, former Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola, leader of the PDP in the state, has collapsed the party’s structure in support of the APC’s candidate, Bola Oyebamiji.
The first flyover in Ife, the first dual carriageways in Ilesha and Iwo, and other infrastructural projects across towns in the state are among the tangible achievements for which Governor Adeleke expects to be rewarded with re-election. Prompt payment of salaries since his assumption of office, along with a controversial payment of wage awards less than 14 days before the election, may cement his support among civil servants, who voted overwhelmingly for him in 2022 on the promise of better welfare. If a mere promise won them over in 2022, its fulfilment now should count for even more.
It is no longer news that Osun is the ancestral home of President Bola Tinubu, a state he lost to Atiku Abubakar in the 2023 presidential election. Winning Osun, for him, will not only launch his electoral comeback in the South West but also re-establish his supremacy over the likes of Rauf Aregbesola and his former political allies, who have recently undermined his political establishment.
While many APC governors are expected to arrive in Osun from Monday to support their party’s candidate, Bola Oyebamiji, Governor Ademola Adeleke of Accord may find himself standing alone, with no federal might and no solidarity from other subnational leaders.
All the parties have experienced their share of gains and losses along the way. In the end, the pendulum will swing toward the candidate with the strongest net advantage.
