- You remain APC leader in Osun, Akande, Oyedokun, Basiru, others tell Oyetola
Leaders of the All Progressives Congress in Osun State and the ruling People’s Democratic Party have been accusing themselves of going diabolical and using fetish means to draw support and votes from the people of the state ahead of the 2026 governorship election in the state.
The APC issued a release on Tuesday condemning the unhealthy desperation of the state governor, Ademola Adeleke to retain power beyond 2026 by allegedly forcing some commercial motorcycle riders to swear oath of allegiance and continuous support for him.
Swiftly, the PDP denied, alleging that the opposition party is known with fetish and diabolical tendencies in playing its politics, asking APC to count Adeleke out of its stock in trade.
The APC chairman in the state, Tajudeen Lawal, in a statement issued by the party’s Director of Media and Information, Kola Olabisi, claimed that despite the governor’s “pungent abysmal poor handling of the governance of the state to the chagrin of the right-thinking members of the society,” “Adeleke has now resorted to forcing commercial motorcycle and tricycle riders in the state to swear to the oath of continuous support for the PDP in all the future elections in the state with the god of iron called ‘Ogun’ in Yoruba parlance.”
Lawal alleged that, “Reliable information has it that when it was apparent that the people of Osun State are fed up with the exhibition of indolence, inefficiency, lack of tact and diplomacy, vindictiveness, favouritism and vendetta, by Governor Adeleke as the unfortunate Chief Driver of the state, the state governor and his cohorts, have taken to various unacceptable means of coercing different groups of the people of the state to declare continuous support for the People’s Democratic Party’s (PDP)-run administration in the state.
“It was also gathered that words have been passed round from the state capital level of the transportation unions that the secret oath-taking of the compulsory allegiance should be held in all the units of the unions across the nooks and crannies of the state.
“Governor Adeleke and his co-travellers have also been going round the state to woo back the real owners of the PDP in the state that they chased back with cudgels, cutlasses, abuses and lack of political patronage immediately Adeleke was announced the winner of the governorship election by the Supreme Court.”
He questioned the rationale behind the governor allegedly engaging in the forceful oath of allegiance taking to effect support if truly his administration is genuinely popular in the state.
Lawal cautioned Adeleke to allow the people to freely make their political choice which is their fundamental right as anything short of that is an unconstitutional act.
Meanwhile, the PDP in a statement signed by its state chairman, Sunday Bisi, described the allegation as a total falsehood campaign against Governor Adeleke, warning that “no amount of concoctions will sway the good people of Osun to return to the dark and painful era of the APC in the state.”
“The APC in Osun clearly exhibited daftness by the outrageous lies that Governor Adeleke is coercing support for his re-election bid, saying the APC has continued to leave no one in doubt that it has nothing meaningful to offer Osun people, hence, the consistent resort to fabricating lies against Governor Adeleke,” Bisi said.
He pointed out that Governor Adeleke incredible performance, both in terms of welfare and infrastructural development naturally earned him the support of not just those in the transportation sector, but also across other sectors, saying, the Osun APC through its chairman, Sooko Tajudeen Lawal, is only echoing the disappointment of his party’s rejection from transporters in the state during a recent failed attempt to win them to its side.
“Contrary to the false impression that Sooko Tajudeen Lawal tried to create, we authoritatively gathered that Osun APC advances to transporters in Osun did not yield and the only thing Kola Olabisi could come up with was to lie to the public.
“To any reasonable mind in Osun, it would not be so hard to understand why transporters in Osun turned down APC advances. Its time at the helm in Osun state brought nothing but pains and anguish, and it is therefore nothing but nonsense on the part of Sooko Tajudeen Lawal to try and cover for his party’s failure and the consequent rejection by cooking up cheap lies.
“Only parasitic elements as the past clearly showed us with the APC that will ever contemplate that Governor Adeleke, going by the monumental infrastructural facelift he is giving to Osun, will need to force support, especially when the only alternative are those who almost drove the state into ditch through reckless financial mismanagement and poor welfare attitude,” the PDP chairman said.
Bisi called on Osun APC to “count the ruling PDP out of its devilish way to gain support,” noting that “it is never in the practice of the PDP to subscribe to oath-taking or any other voodoo means to retain support.”
“It is well known to Osun people that the APC operates more like an occultic group than a political party, and so, can only be the one who deploys oath-taking to gain support. It must be this understanding, I presume, that is giving Sooko Tajudeen Lawal, the archaic impression about the PDP, but unfortunately, he is damned wrong.
“The PDP’s only way to gaining and retaining support is good governance, and this much explains the energy and zeal that Governor Adeleke is putting into turning Osun around for the better. While the Adeleke administration has been focused on getting Osun people on its side through a series of impactful and visible programmes and projects, the APC has been fixated on spewing lies about Governor Adeleke and in some cases, prying into his personal life.
“The reason for this is no other than the wasteful years of the APC in Osun, because for the twelve years it was at the helm of affairs, the stories of pains and mismanagement reigned supreme. Not even the immediate past administration led by the APC has anything tangible to woo support of the people, hence, the resort to lies and inanities.
“As a party, we will not be distracted by the shameless attitude of charlatans who seek power not because of the people but to serve their miserable lives. Governor Adeleke will continue to invest in the wellbeing of the people through meaningful interventions, and in turn, get their support, while those who are struggling so hard to get back the trust of the people they wasted through crude mismanagement and gross incompetence will continue to wail,” he alleged.
You remain APC leader in Osun, Akande, Oyedokun, Basiru, others tell Oyetola
Meanwhile, the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Adegboyega Oyetola, has been re-affirmed as the leader of the All Progressives Congress in Osun State.
The Osun APC stakeholders who attended a meeting pledged their unalloyed support to the leadership style of the minister, who was the immediate past governor of Osun.
The leadership endorsement ceremony was held on Tuesday.
The meeting was graced by the party chieftains including Chief Adebisi Akande, Chief Shuaib Oyedokun, Senator Ajibola Basiru, Chief (Mrs) Grace Titilayo Ponle, and Senator Babajide Omoworare.
Others were Professor Mojeed Alabi, party chairman, Tajudeen Lawal, Sunday Akere, Gboyega Famodun, Chief Shola Akinwunmi, and many other party members.
