Politics

A THREE-HORSE RACE IS SHAPING UP IN OSUN – WITH A ‘LỌ́KÀN’TOUCH

Published by Akinwale Fakinlede on November 26th, 2025.

By Olalere Oladitan

Right now, the PDP governor of Osun State, Ademola Adeleke, is politically homeless and shopping for a new party along with a fresh four-year term.

It all started about eight months ago with a flurry of intriguing moves. First came a visit by Femi Gbajabiamila, President Tinubu’s Chief of Staff to Governor Adeleke in Osogbo. By Easter, Adeleke was paying Tinubu a chummy private visit in his Lagos residence and releasing warm, smiling photographs immediately afterwards. His elder brother, Deji and musician nephew, Davido were with him and the president’s wife, Remi, probably a Davido fan was there as well posing for photos with the pop star at the visit.

Osun APC members reacted with displeasure and started to spread bile about Gbaja. The anger and orchestration against him was quite intense and it was as if the party members would bite him if he ever set foot on Osogbo soil again. Word was that Gbaja was single-handedly packaging Adeleke’s ‘free transfer’ to the APC without even consulting the state chapter of the party. The thinking in Abuja – or so it was though – was simple: after APC’s Gboyega Oyetola’s crushing defeat in 2022 — where the party lost the governorship, all three Senate seats, all House of Reps and State Assembly seats (retaining just one lone Rep seat), the APC in Osun had become so weak it could not win any election on its own. The only shortcut was to poach the sitting PDP governor whose own party was also imploding.

Adeleke, a natural heavyweight leapt mightily, but landed right back where he started from. Local APC turf defenders chased Gbaja and his plan far into the mountains and convinced Abuja that they could rebuild the party without importing a decampee PDP governor.

Yet, with roughly nine months to the 2026 election, everything remains fluid. Adeleke is now looking to jump to either APGA or Accord because the storm of internal crises has blown the roof off his once-mighty PDP. He simply cannot run on the PDP ticket: the party is busier with either street fights at their headquarters or litigation fights in different categories of courts across the nation. It no longer has a functional Executive Committee capable of processing nomination forms to meet INEC’s statutory requirements.

Make no mistake about it — Adeleke remains very popular in Osun. His showman politics still works like magic. He pays salaries on the 25th of every month, has built two flyovers in Ile-Ife and Osogbo, and whenever the people start getting bored, he brings in his famous nephew, pop star Davido, who flashes that megawatt smile and the crowd goes rocking. The APC was deeply hated for its salary arrears scandal; Adeleke sealed that crack and still reaps the applause. Under a previous APC government, civil servants were paid only half salary for months while the balance was kept as a zero interest debt note. Adeleke pledged full and prompt salary payment and has kept his word. The flyover in the state capital is the icing on the cake. That formula will continue to work right up to election day unless another party produces something truly outstanding and exceptional.

Will the APC produce that outstanding exception? So far, nothing in its body language suggests it will. The party appears stuck in the same tunnel vision that delivered the stunning 2022 wipeout.

The same people who controlled the party then still control it now, and they are thinking the same way. They are confident that Abuja power will do it. Reports indicate they are preparing to hand the governorship ticket to Bola Oyebamiji — the same man who was Commissioner of Finance during the infamous half-salary era. That is one name that still makes civil servants (a major voting and political influence bloc) bristle with irritation. The situation is just like refinancing a debt at a higher interest rate – trying to offset a deficit using the same erroneous management skills that incurred the debts and hoping for a healthy balance sheet at year’s end.

Two events in Osogbo yesterday, however, will decisively shape the emerging three-horse race.

First, former Governor Rauf Aregbesola, now leading the ADC after his bitter divorce from the APC, staged a massive rally in Osogbo that shocked observers. An APC leader, speaking about the event said he was “saddened” to see that Aregbesola still commanded such a following in Osogbo. Aregbesola remains surprisingly popular in the state capital, apart from his home town, Ilesha and the crowd there was electric. His ADC has been floating the idea that it will pick its candidate from Osun West Senatorial District, but insiders know this is a decoy. Aregbesola is waiting to see who the APC picks before naming his own candidate — and yesterday’s show of strength sent a clear message that he is still a force and has designs on picking his candidate from Osogbo for maximum electoral gains.

Second, indigenes of Osogbo staged their own rally the same day as well — part appeal, part anger. Osogbo people feel chronically undervalued despite delivering the largest bloc votes in the state. In every election cycle, the party that carries Osogbo carries the governorship. You could actually just check Osogbo votes and go to bed knowing the winner in Osogbo is the winner overall. It is that punchy. Yet in the 33 years since Osun State was created in 1991, no son or daughter of Osogbo has ever occupied the governor’s seat. Yesterday they took to the streets with placards and a battle cry borrowed from President Tinubu himself: “Osogbo Lọ́kàn!” (It is Osogbo’s turn!). The Osogbo political plot has always been there popularity called the Osogbo Agenda and their message was blunt: the roughly 300,000 votes from Osogbo Federal Constituency will go en-bloc to whichever party fields an Osogbo indigene as its governorship candidate – for good or for ill.

In a state where the total valid votes in the last election hovered around 780,000–800,000, and you need roughly 400,000 plus the constitutional two-thirds spread to win, ignoring 300,000 bloc votes is political suicide.

Zoning a ticket to a constituency in the name of equalization is fine when you are the incumbent or the clear favourite, but it is a superlative luxury you cannot afford when you are an opposition party still licking the wounds of a 98% wipeout. The APC’s body-labguage candidate for the governorship comes from a zone that can realistically deliver no more than 15,000–20,000 votes even with a perfect campaign and he has the liability of the salary shortfall mentioned earlier to the irritation of a major voting bloc. Yet the party insists on zoning the ticket to Osun West in favour of AMBO as Oyebamiji is known on the campaign front. Adeleke’s group are praying for this fortuitous outcome since it mirrors the state of affairs when they won in 2022, only this time around, they have achievements to show and the governor has also probably learned new dance steps. They call the APC apparent candidate ‘customer’ and hope for his nomination at the party’s primaries on December 13.

Aregbesola and his strategists have clearly read the mood in Osogbo and continue to quietly hope that the APC leadership in Abuja and some state chieftains continue to play deaf to it.

Some of the APC leaders in the state continue to hope in the deployment of what they call “federal might” the way PDP did against Aregbesola reelection in 2014 with Iyiola Omisore to a complete rout. The PDP lost that election spectacularly with a margin of more than 100,000 despite controlling the centre.

Even with a very good candidate, to have any realistic chance of unseating Adeleke, a challenger must tap into Osogbo’s 300,000 bloc votes. Adeleke already has his own firewall of at least 160,000 votes in Ede Federal Constituency, where he has reportedly turned his hometown into “the Paris of Osun” with several kilometers of roads and streetlights. I have seen it myself — the transformation is real. You cannot beat that kind of entrenched bloc voting with scattered votes picked across the state; you need your own central pool.

Even Ile-Ife’s traditional influence via Iyiola Omisore is neutralised: Adeleke is a big tree in Ile-Ife as well.

In short, the answer is staring the APC in the face, yet the party is searching for the question with an oil lamp at noon.

My reading: the moment the APC picks a non-Osogbo candidate, Aregbesola will swiftly present a popular Osogbo indigene on the ADC platform. The governorship will still likely go to Adeleke (or whichever platform he eventually lands on), but the ADC will come a strong second and sweep a haul of National and State Assembly seats in 2027, setting the stage for a possible governorship win 2030.

With its legendary skipper retired from politics by then, the APC will be condemned to another four years in the wilderness — and the party’s fate will mirror the PDP’s current ugly gully erosion.

Yet salvation is probably still possible. The APC has at least two credible Osogbo indigenes aspiring to the ticket: a senior lawyer and a professor of medicine who are well established in the party. If the party listens to the clear message from Tuesday’s “Osogbo Lọ́kàn” rally and picks one of them the script flips dramatically.

But there is more and there is no need to shy away from this. There is a fifth column thinking of certain personal interests and deep-seated “bad belle” within the state chapter may deliberately sabotage the party again — just to settle old scores or inflict wounds and work for the party’s loss by presenting a weak candidate by design. That same spoiler tactic was used in 2022. If it rears its head again, it will mark the point of no return for the APC in Osun State.

A fascinating three-horse race is loading and, with some effort and relative ease, the APC will either win narrowly with an Osogbo strategy or come a distant third from the way things are going.

*Olalere Oladitan is a poultry farmer and political analyst. He writes from Ilobu.*