Adeleke’s Tinubu Endorsement: The Osun Victory Has Opened a Bigger Political Conversation

Governor Ademola Adeleke’s Victory Has Changed the Osun Equation. His Tinubu Overture May Change It Again.

The most revealing thing about Ademola Adeleke’s first major interview after winning Osun may not have been the dancing. It was the politics behind the dance.

Speaking with Seun Okinbaloye on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics on August 16, the re-elected governor spoke about his victory, his relationship with President Bola Tinubu, his late brother Isiaka Adeleke and what he intends to do with another four years in Osun.

Adeleke also said he had instructed the Attorney General to withdraw the suit against the EFCC following Tinubu’s intervention over the freezing of the state government’s account.

His explanation was strikingly pragmatic: “Mr President has done well. He called me. What more do I want?” That sentence deserves more attention than it has received.

Because the Osun election has produced an unusual Nigerian political picture. A governor contesting on the Accord platform has defeated the President’s party by 511,067 to 444,815 votes, won 19 of the state’s 30 LGAs, and emerged from the election openly reaffirming his support for Tinubu’s 2027 ambition.

ValidViewNetwork reports that Adeleke’s relationship with Tinubu is not entirely new. The two camps have maintained cordial relations despite belonging to opposing parties, while Adeleke’s reported flirtation with joining the APC last year exposed deep divisions within the Osun APC over whether the governor should be admitted.

Some party leaders opposed the idea, while Adeleke’s political camp maintained its relationship with the presidency.

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The election has now made the implications harder to ignore.

The APC Has a Bigger Problem Than Adeleke

The danger for the Osun APC is not simply that Adeleke has defeated Oyebamiji. It is that the election has demonstrated that the electorate may be more politically important than the political structures claiming to represent it.

Before the election, APC leaders repeatedly presented federal influence as a major advantage. Oyebamiji was described as President Tinubu’s candidate, while the APC sought to consolidate the party’s political machinery around him.

Yet Adeleke continued building his own relationship with voters. That distinction matters. If Adeleke remains in Accord, the APC must confront a governor who has already demonstrated that he can defeat the ruling party while maintaining a working relationship with the President.

If he eventually joins the APC, the problem becomes even more uncomfortable. The party would then have to explain to its Osun members why the man they were told could not be accommodated could potentially become one of the most powerful political figures inside the same party.

Either way, Adeleke has changed the bargaining position. And that may be the most important political consequence of August 15.

There is also a lesson in the governor’s interview that goes beyond party politics. Adeleke spoke emotionally about visiting the grave of his late brother, Senator Isiaka Adeleke, before the election to seek psychological strength.

He spoke about accessibility, his relationship with ordinary Osun residents and his promise to transform the state beyond dependence on civil service.

He even defended the dancing persona that opponents have repeatedly used to question his seriousness, insisting that dancing has never prevented him from doing his job.

The message is unmistakable; the personality voters saw during the campaign is the personality Adeleke intends to govern with.

But this is where the applause must stop. The people of Osun did not give Adeleke another four years merely to dance, distribute political appointments or celebrate another electoral victory.

They gave him a much harder assignment. Prove that the love was deserved. The electorate has done its part. It rejected the politics of inevitability and demonstrated that federal power, endorsements and party machinery cannot automatically manufacture consent.

Now Adeleke must govern at the level at which Osun voted. And the APC must return to the drawing board.

Not because it lost one election. Because it may have misunderstood the people it was trying to win. ValidViewNetwork reports.