Still on Governor Ademola Adeleke’s recent outburst — by Razaq Abubakre

The interview of His Excellency, Governor Ademola Adeleke of Osun State, makes a splendid similitude of a convicted person blaming the judges for not allowing his pleas to stand. In the first place, every reasonable governor will want to be in the party of a president whose economic reforms and dexterity make governance easy for the state governors in the last three years. This explains why 18 out of the 19 governors from the North are now in APC. It is also not a surprise that two of the three non-APC governors in the Southeast, Charles Soludo of Anambra State, Alex Otti of Abia State, pledged to work for APC.

Even for the PBAT achievements of adequate fiscal disbursement with dexterity to the federation accounts and its autonomy alone is sufficient to make him attractive to all without any political bigotry. Thus, the governor and other members of his family should not be blamed for attempting almost desperately to join APC when they did. Moreso, a governor whose party is sinking can only be said to be witty to jump the ship.

This said, what was the fault of the president who may not know the past records of the governor from fact checking the past of an executive from those who know in order not to walk his party to a trap. And, who can be a better reference in this scenario than the acclaimed and freely choosing leader of the party in the State who had governed the State, Isiaka Adegboyega Oyetola. On this call, both the president and his Minister of Marine and Blue Economy are not to blame.

The factors that worked against the foisting of Governor Adeleke on the APC of Osun State are multi-dimensional and they are the ones haunting the Governor and making his success at the poll come August 15 2026, akin to drawing water from a mirage. The law of natural consequence or succinctly put,the law of retribution is decreed by God The Almighty. Violence is an ill wind that blows no one any good.

The intimidation of killing,maiming and making citizens of Osun State to abandon their homes on the heel of the PDP members persecution of the APC members cannot be forgotten in a hurry.The trajectory of do or die politics lingers on in the recent past until last year when an autonomous APC local government chairman was gruesomely murdered in office.

The terrain has changed from that of 2022, because there will not be a former, APC Governor taking a faction of the party to support the Accord party. Neither, would there be an APC sitting President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria acting with a lukewarm attitude for the success of his party in this State simply to undermine the then party leader Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Indeed, the gains to APC from those who abandoned PDP over the past couple of years and those who are stranded in the PDP as of now will not be lost to Asiwaju Munirudeen Bola Oyebamiji during the August 15 election. No one should be deceived by a protest defection of some followers of those who did not make the primary of the APC because it still remains an internal affair which can and as a matter of fact is resolvable before the election. In any case people at the grassroots who know the difference cannot be fooled.

The major albatross of the current Governor of Osun State is the culture of violence which is being addressed in this discourse. It was the violence between the NNDP (Egbe Demo) of Chief S.L. Akintola and the Action Group (Egbe Afenifere) leading to the operation wet ie of killing, maiming and other forms of arson that diminished the political leverage of Chief S.L. Akintola inspite of his good intentions for the Yoruba race, his wit and unequalled oratory power. On the contrary, the same political occurrence enhanced the political acclaim of Chief Obafemi Awolowo.

It was the gruesome murder of almost all the top ranking political office holders and top brass military officers of Hausa/Fulani and the Yorubas/Itsekiri stock, by the Igbo young officers and a dubious takeover of power by the most senior Igbo officers in the Nigeria Army who foisted a unitary rule, abrogating the constitutional federal system. This violence makes ascension to Igbo presidency in Nigeria unattainable.

Without attempting to sound immodest, the present writer as Federal Commissioner in charge of Osun State for Public Complaints Commission (PCC),( 2012-2018), acting on the provision of the constitution of the PCC contemplated by General Yakubu Gowon and decreed by General Murtala Muhammad in 1975 and accomodated in the 1999 constitution, to be under the National Assembly with powers to adjudicate on any matter from the office of the President to the lowest officer in Nigeria, took an action which favoured the family of Governor Adeleke.

It was during the scheduled primary of the PDP in 2014 when former Governor Adetunji Adeleke was reported to be harrassed in his hotel by another aspirant in the party. The present writer intervened in writing which so pleased the ex-Governor Adetunji Adeleke that he paid for a radio advertisement commending the role of the Ombudsman (my humble self). This paid advert of his was aired after the OSBC news for three days in succession. After a couple of days, Senator Adetunji Adeleke left the PDP to join the APC from where he was elected as Senator.

Behavioural pattern is another key factor in the assessment of the chances of the incumbent Governor in the August 15 election in Osun State. To start with dancing with dexterity to the admiration of the voters was just cute and of entertainment value on a happy day when his brother Adetunji Adeleke was joining the APC.The incumbent governor missed it that it is of a diminishing factor for his new office.

He should have taken a cue from the statement of President Tinubu as an asnwer to him, when the President asked him how was dancing which was widely seen in a clip which went viral than waiting for a roundtable conference with the President and leadership of APC in Osun State, sequel to his lobby to join the APC. Other pattern appertaining to behaviour is elements of greed in seizing advantages for his town, Ede. An illustration for this was Governor Adeleke’s struggle to relocate the airport designed by the progressive government in Egbedore local government which is closer to Osogbo the State capital and its lower level of government projects than Ede.

Similar to this is his halting the road rehabilitation project embarked upon by former Governor Adegboyega Oyetola from Osogbo to Ede, to Iwo and the boundary of Osun State. Former Governor Adegboyega Oyetola also secured the consent of the Governor of Oyo State to carry the rest from Osun boundary to Ibadan. The Governor knows full well that the bad road from Ejigbo to Ede was embarked upon and completed by his predecessor, Gboyega Oyetola.

His scorn for the city of Iwo and its royalty, was obvious from his pattern of behaviour on his mind and on his tongue during his interview published on his instagram a couple of days now. This glib statements came inspite of and because of his deliberate beautification with both intra and intercity roads of Ede to the chagrin of its neighbours. The insult heaped on the ancient city of Iwo and its natural ruler is weird.

The fact is that traditionally and from the primordial time, Iwo and Ede were sisters with a leitmoif in Oye ti o kan ara Iwo o n bo waa kan ara Ede (the title that is the turn of somebody from Iwo will soon be the turn of somebody from Ede). Corroborating this is is the regime of Muhammadu Lamuye and that of Habibu Olagunju, the contempoary Muslim rulers of Iwo and Ede respectively. Such a denigrating statement must have come from the frustration of a drowning person.

One concluding remark is the memory of the wild cacophony with which senator Ademola Adeleke was greeted about his poor educational background, competence and moral rectitude from the beginning and even now. This was lent credence by the suspicion that he may not be the actual ruler of the State afterall, while the deemed actual rulers were two of his elder male and female siblings. Without mincing words, this can only be nauseating to the intelligent electorates in contemporary Osun State.

Professor Razaq ‘Deremi Abubakre writes from Iwo, Osun State.