* APC stalwarts blame Oyetola for party’s defeat
By Charles Olewezi
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), on Sunday, officially declared the candidate of Accord Party and incumbent governor of Osun State, Senator Ademola Jackson Adeleke, as the winner of Saturday’s gubernatorial election. He polled a total of 511,067 votes to defeat his closest rival Bola Oyebamiji of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who scored 444,815 votes. The candidate of the African Democratic Congress, ADC, came a distant third with 17,180 votes. The three candidates were earlier projected by political observers as the leading contenders in Saturday’s election.
As predicted by this medium in our lead story on Friday, two key individuals from Ile-Ife, a powerful voting bloc in Osun State, ensured Adeleke came out victorious in the three Local Government Areas in Ife. They are Senator Iyiola Omisore and Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, the Ooni of Ife. Adeleke, according to INEC official result, polled a total of 61,879 votes as against Oyebamiji’s 49,191 in the three LGAs in Ife, giving him a margin lead of 12,688 votes there. This significantly aided Adeleke’s overall victory.
Senator Iyiola Omisore, an illustrious son of Ife, is arguably the strongest political son Ife has produced. He served as the Deputy Governor of Osun between 1999 and 2003 under the then Alliance for Democracy (AD) before he moved to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). He had previously served as a senator, and had severally run for the governorship position of the state without success. In 2018, his last minute support for the APC gave Oyetola the victory against then PDP’s Adeleke. Omisore once again declared his intention to run for the governor of Osun State under APC but was disqualified by the party’s screening committee for the primaries last December along with six other aspirants. He did not openly support any candidate in Saturday’s election but many of his supporters in anger had pitched tent with Adeleke.
For instance, a former Osun State Commissioner for Education, Mr Folorunsho Oladoyin, had announced during one of the mega campaign rallies for Adeleke that the supporters of the ex-APC National Secretary, Omisore, had decided to join Accord for Adeleke’s re-election. He said, “I want to congratulate you in the name of the supporters of Senator Iyiola Omisore throughout the state. When Adeleke was alone without our support, he beat our party, the APC, three times. Adeleke will win the election, and we will work for him. He has done well and deserve a second term.” This was seen by political observers as an indirect endorsement of Adeleke by Omisore and contributed greatly in pulling Ife votes for Adeleke in Saturday’s election.
The Ooni on his part publicly declared his support for Adeleke, endorsing his second-term bid while also praising his infrastructure work in Ile-Ife. Although tradition demands that the Ooni should be neutral as father to all, he openly prayed for Adeleke during the governor’s visit to the palace, asking God to bring him back for the people. He explicitly prayed that the state would not return to past political eras. This singular act must have played a key role in persuading the majority of the people of Ife to support the governor.
Some APC stalwarts have however reportedly blamed the former governor and current leader of the party in the state, Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola, who is also the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy for the party’s defeat.
“He blocked Governor Adeleke from defecting to the APC. This election would have been a walkover for us just like the Ekiti election but we lost him to Accord,” a party chieftain, who chose to remain anonymous, noted. Another party chieftain lamented that Oyetola could not even deliver his unit, losing it to the Accord party by 120 votes to 81.