OSOGBO.
The Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Gboyega Oyetola, has told Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke that endorsing President Bola Tinubu for a second term will not save his government from defeat in Saturday’s governorship election, dismissing the endorsement as irrelevant to a contest the All Progressives Congress intends to win outright.
Oyetola, who lost the governorship to Adeleke in 2022 before serving out his term at the centre as a federal minister, made the remarks on Saturday while addressing APC stakeholders and supporters in Osun State, a week to the August 15 poll.
Findings show his comments were a direct response to Adeleke’s allegations that APC members and Accord Party leaders loyal to him were being intimidated ahead of the election, a claim Oyetola dismissed as evidence that the governor already senses defeat.
‘Endorsement Cannot Retain This Seat’
Speaking in Yoruba, Oyetola told supporters that Adeleke’s public complaints amounted to an admission that his grip on the state was slipping.
Checks by ValidViewNetwork confirm he singled out Adeleke’s endorsement of Tinubu for the 2027 presidential race as politically meaningless to Saturday’s outcome, telling the crowd, “If you like, make 10 endorsements, we will collect this one from you.”
He went further, mocking what he described as Adeleke’s habit of blaming him for every misfortune, joking that the governor would credit him even for a nightmare or a late meal from his wife.
The minister’s remarks were laced with the theatrics both men have built their political rivalry on, but the substance behind them points to a genuine strategic question hanging over Saturday’s poll; whether Adeleke’s endorsement of Tinubu’s 2027 ambition, a move seen as an attempt to secure federal goodwill and blunt APC’s campaign in his home state, will actually translate into votes for his re-election bid under the Accord Party.
A Rivalry Now In Its Third Round
This is not the first time the ballot box has settled a dispute between these two men, and the history explains why both sides are treating Saturday’s vote as personal.
Oyetola first won the Osun governorship in 2018 after INEC ordered a rerun across seven local government areas, a contest he took by the narrowest of margins.
He sought re-election in 2022, only to be defeated by Adeleke, then the PDP candidate, who polled 403,371 votes to Oyetola’s 375,027, a winning margin of roughly 28,000 votes and just over three percentage points.Oyetola did not concede the loss quietly.
He and the APC petitioned the Osun Election Petition Tribunal, alleging over-voting in 744 polling units, and won there in January 2023, when a split tribunal panel ordered INEC to strip Adeleke of his certificate of return and hand it to Oyetola instead.
Adeleke appealed, and the Court of Appeal reversed the tribunal’s ruling in March 2023, restoring him to office on the grounds that Oyetola had failed to prove his over-voting claims using the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System.
Oyetola pushed the matter to the Supreme Court, which on May 9, 2023, unanimously dismissed his appeal and affirmed Adeleke as the validly elected governor, with the apex court awarding costs of N500,000 against Oyetola and the APC.
Oyetola, notably, later called Adeleke to congratulate him after that final ruling, a gesture Saturday’s combative rhetoric shows has not survived the years since.
Adeleke’s Counter: Intimidation And A 1983 Warning
Adeleke has framed his campaign concerns in sharper terms than a routine contest. At a rally in Olorunda local government area days before Oyetola’s remarks, the governor accused the federal government of turning a blind eye to what he described as politically motivated arrests and killings targeting his supporters, appealing directly to Tinubu to intervene.
He also invoked the political crisis that convulsed the old Western Region in 1983, when disputes over the elections involving Bola Ige and Michael Ajasin spiralled into unrest, warning that Osun would not tolerate any attempt at rigging in 2026.
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The Osun APC swiftly rejected the allegations. In a statement issued by the party’s Director of Media and Information, Kola Olabisi, the party accused Adeleke of manufacturing sympathy ahead of a poll he privately expects to lose, and reminded the governor that his endorsement of Tinubu for 2027 was a voluntary decision that should not now be used to explain away his own preparedness for Saturday’s contest.
Olabisi went further, needling Adeleke over his public image, remarking that the governor “resorts to dancing when an injection of intellect is needed.”
Who’s On The Ballot
Adeleke is seeking a second term under the Accord Party, having left the PDP after his first-term victory, and faces the APC’s candidate, Bola Oyebamiji, in a field that also includes candidates from smaller parties.
Oyetola himself is not a candidate this time, having moved into Tinubu’s federal cabinet, but his open, frequent interventions in Osun politics suggest the APC continues to lean on him as its most potent messenger in the state he governed for four years.
What Happens Next
INEC has scheduled the governorship election for Saturday, August 15, 2026. With both camps now trading accusations of intimidation and impending defeat in the same breath, and a Supreme Court precedent from the last cycle showing that Osun’s governorship battles rarely end at the ballot box alone, Saturday’s result is likely to be only the first stage of a contest that has already run through rerun elections, tribunals, an appeal court and the apex court once this decade.
