ADELEKE NAMED OSUN COORDINATOR AS APC EXCLUDES OYETOLA FROM CAMPAIGN COUNCIL

In a move that has upended conventional political arithmetic and deepened internal tensions within the ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has appointed Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke, a member of the opposition Accord Party, to lead President Bola Tinubu’s 2027 re-election campaign in Osun State. It conspicuously excludes the party’s own leader in the state, Gboyega Oyetola.

The development is contained in a revised list of the APC Presidential Campaign Council released on Tuesday morning, ahead of the council’s inauguration scheduled for Wednesday, 14 October 2026, at the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa in Abuja.

Adeleke’s appointment, first reported by Premium Times, places an opposition governor at the heart of the APC’s presidential campaign machinery in Osun, a state where the APC lost the governorship election just two months ago.

THE APPOINTMENT: A POLITICAL ODDITY WITH PRECEDENT

The appointment of Adeleke as Osun coordinator is unusual on its face. He is the elected governor of Osun State on the platform of the Accord Party, having defeated the APC’s candidate, Bola Oyebamiji, in the August 15, 2026 governorship election with 511,067 votes to Oyebamiji’s 444,815.

Yet the APC’s revised campaign council list places him ahead of the party’s own bigwigs in the state, including Oyetola, the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy and immediate past governor, and Oyebamiji, the party’s 2026 governorship candidate.

The APC’s national leadership had laid the groundwork for this arrangement weeks before the official announcement. On August 30, 2026, APC National Secretary Senator Ajibola Basiru visited Adeleke at the Osun Government House in Osogbo, where he publicly disclosed that Adeleke had not only endorsed Tinubu but had pledged to “campaign vigorously” for the President .

“The governor has said that he will not only endorse the President, he will also be on the field to campaign vigorously for President Bola Tinubu,” Basiru said at the time.

THE BACKSTORY: WHY ADELEKE ENDORSED TINUBU

Adeleke’s decision to support Tinubu has its roots in a relationship that predates the 2026 governorship election.

In an appearance on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics in August, Adeleke denied any formal agreement with Tinubu but explained his rationale.

He recalled how he had supported Tinubu’s choice of Senate President Godswill Akpabio and House Speaker Tajudeen Abbas during the 2023 National Assembly leadership contest, despite pressure from some Osun lawmakers to back a different candidate.

“I told the Chief of Staff to tell the President that there was nothing to worry about,” Adeleke said. “I called them. I said, when I say something, I never fail”.

Adeleke also cited Tinubu’s regional identity as a factor. “My support is just based on, he’s a Yoruba man, and he’s from the South-West, and I believe that all the federal roads that he has started, I want to encourage him not to forget the South-West,” he said.

He further revealed that Tinubu had shown empathy when the government’s account was frozen by the EFCC just days before the August 15 governorship election, a gesture Adeleke appears not to have forgotten.

FCT MINISTER WIKE’S INTERVENTION

The arrangement was also actively promoted by Nyesom Wike, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, who on Monday declared himself coordinator of Tinubu’s campaign in the FCT and Rivers State.

According to TheWill, Wike personally contacted Adeleke after his election victory and asked him to publicly reaffirm his support for Tinubu’s 2027 bid.

Wike’s intervention reflects a broader strategy of building a cross-party coalition for Tinubu. He has been central to the so-called Rainbow Coalition, which brings together figures from the APC, PDP, and other parties to support the President’s re-election.

THE APC’S PROJECTION: 1.5 MILLION VOTES

The APC’s decision to hand the Osun campaign to Adeleke is not merely symbolic. It is mathematical.

Basiru, the APC National Secretary, has projected that combining the electoral strength of the APC and the Accord Party could deliver about 1.5 million votes for Tinubu in Osun State.

“You can even see from the last contest, my party performed creditably well in that election, scoring 46 per cent of the votes,” Basiru said.

“In between the Accord and the APC, we have close to one million votes, and with the presidential election, I think we should be looking, if we worked together, at about 1.5 million votes for President Bola Tinubu”.

The Imole Campaign Council, TICC, the political structure associated with Adeleke, has already confirmed its readiness to deliver. In a statement signed by its Director-General, Senator Olalere Oyewumi, the council said the appointment was “well deserved” and pledged to deploy all Accord structures in Osun for Tinubu’s re-election.

“We promise the President, just like Governor Adeleke had said some time ago, that we will deliver 1.5 million votes to ensure his victory in the coming Presidential election,” the council said.

THE EXCLUSION OF OYETOLA

The most consequential aspect of the revised campaign list is not who was included, but who was left out.Gboyega Oyetola, the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy and the APC’s acknowledged leader in Osun State, was not assigned any role in the campaign council.

The list includes former Osun governor Bisi Akande and his former deputy, Iyiola Omisore, as advisers to the campaign council. Akande is a respected elder statesman and former interim national chairman of the APC. Omisore, a former National Secretary of the APC, remains an influential figure in Osun politics.

But Oyetola’s omission is striking. As the immediate past governor and the party’s leader in the state, he would ordinarily be expected to play a central role in the presidential campaign.

The APC has not publicly announced what role, if any, Oyetola would play in the campaign structure.

WHY OYETOLA WAS EXCLUDED: A HISTORY OF CONFLICT

Oyetola’s exclusion is not an isolated event. It is the culmination of a prolonged internal crisis within the Osun APC that has pitted Oyetola’s faction against other power centres within the party.

The roots of the conflict run back to the 2026 governorship primary and the processes that produced the party’s candidates.

According to reports, many party leaders were embittered by the outcome of the congresses and the candidate selection process, which they said excluded their input.

A source said: “Many members of the party are embittered by the processes and the outcome of the last round of congresses that threw up candidates of the party for the 2027 general elections. Many of the leading gladiators in the Osun State chapter of the party are not really happy that they were never allowed to make valuable inputs”.

The most significant rift was between Oyetola and Senator Ajibola Basiru, the APC National Secretary. According to the source, the conflict began when Oyetola attempted to replace Basiru as national secretary.

Basiru had to leverage his contacts within the party to retain his position, but “the wound had become so deep”.

The conflict deepened when Oyetola populated the state campaign organisation for the governorship election with his loyalists, leaving Basiru and his supporters out. Basiru, feeling slighted, stayed away from the campaign, remaining in Abuja to perform his national duties.

When Basiru hosted Adeleke at his Osogbo residence during a condolence visit following his mother’s death, some APC members accused him of anti-party activities. But the visit was an early signal of the realignment that has now been formalised .

OMISORE’S CAMP: A KEY FACTOR

The role of Iyiola Omisore and his supporters in this political realignment cannot be overstated.In the lead-up to the August 2026 governorship election, Omisore’s supporters in the APC defected en masse to the Accord Party, citing frustration over the party’s refusal to present Omisore as its governorship candidate.

Among the defectors were two former commissioners, Folorunsho Bamisayemi and Yemi Lawal, both loyalists of Omisore.

At the flag-off of Adeleke’s re-election campaign, Bamisayemi said: “When Adeleke was alone without our support, he beat our party, APC, three times… We, the supporters of Omisore, decided to join Adeleke for his re-election. We told them that they should present Omisore as candidate of the party but they didn’t listen”.

Omisore himself has not formally joined the Accord Party, but the defection of his supporters has effectively aligned his political network with Adeleke, a development that has now been institutionalised by his inclusion as an adviser to the APC campaign council .

THE WIDER APC CAMPAIGN COUNCIL

The revised presidential campaign council list includes several other notable appointments that reflect the APC’s strategy for 2027.

Nyesom Wike, the FCT Minister and a PDP member, was named coordinator for Rivers State and the FCT. Anambra State Governor Chukwuma Soludo, also of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), was listed among the coordinators .

Delta State Governor Sheriff Oborevwori was named Director of Finance . Ogun State Governor Dapo Abiodun and Nigeria Revenue Service Chairman Zacch Adedeji will coordinate fundraising.

Senator Abdulaziz Yari retains his position as Director-General of the campaign council, with Senator Adams Oshiomhole as Deputy Director-General for Mobilisation and Femi Gbajabiamila as Deputy Director-General for Administration .Imo State Governor Hope Uzodimma retains his position as secretary of the council.

APC National Secretary Ajibola Basiru and Hadiza Bala-Usman were named deputy secretary and assistant secretary, respectively .Dele Alake remains the campaign council’s spokesman.

THE SIGNIFICANCE

The appointment of Adeleke as Osun coordinator represents a calculated gamble by the APC.On one hand, it formalises an alliance with an opposition governor who commands a significant political structure and who won the governorship election by more than 66,000 votes.

Adeleke’s Accord Party and the APC together polled nearly one million votes in August, a combined force that could deliver the 1.5 million votes the party is projecting.

On the other hand, the exclusion of Oyetola risks alienating the APC’s own base in Osun. Oyetola is the party’s leader in the state, and his supporters constitute a significant portion of the APC’s electoral strength. If they feel sidelined, they may withhold their support or, worse, work against the campaign.

The decision also raises questions about the APC’s internal cohesion. A party that excludes its own state leader from its presidential campaign structure is a party that has unresolved internal conflicts. Those conflicts may not matter in the presidential election, where Tinubu’s name on the ballot may be enough to secure victory in Osun.

But they will certainly matter for the party’s long-term health.

For Adeleke, the appointment is a political masterstroke. He has positioned himself as a key ally of the President while maintaining his Accord Party platform, giving him leverage in future negotiations with the federal government. His supporters have already framed the appointment as vindication of his leadership.

For Oyetola, the exclusion is a rebuke. He has been publicly sidelined in his own state by a party he has served as governor and continues to serve as a minister. Whether he accepts this quietly or fights back will determine whether the Osun APC remains a united force or fractures further.

ValidViewNetwork reports that the campaign council will be inaugurated on Wednesday, 14 October 2026, at the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa in Abuja . The APC has not announced what role, if any, Oyetola will play in the campaign.