Osun voters showed how democracy works in Adeleke’s re-election —Olawale Rasheed

Olawale Rasheed is the Special Adviser on Media to Osun State governor, Ademola Adeleke, who won re-election in a highly contentious poll on August 15, 2026. In this interview with PHILIP IBITOYE, Rasheed spoke on factors that led to Governor Adeleke’s victory, the governor’s second-term industrial and infrastructural plans, his endorsement of President Bola Tinubu, and the latest on the seized local government allocations.

IT has been two weeks since Governor Adeleke’s victory. Despite the high hurdles he faced, he won with his best margin of the past three runs. What are the factors that you think led to his eventual victory despite these challenges?

The first thing I will attribute Mr Governor’s victory to is God; a divine mandate, a divine decision by Almighty God that the governor will not just win first term, but will also win second term. Now, the second reason is that the people of Osun State; the people love good governance. They have seen divine governance. They have seen Governor Adeleke proving to the world that good governance is possible, even no matter how the political situation may look like. The governor was able to touch all major towns in terms of opening them up, in terms of showing the towns that fast-track development is possible. The governor did so at Ile-Ife. He did the first flyover, did the dualised road up to the palace, and then reconstructed another 40 roads in the source; that is outside other deliveries. The governor came to Iwo, gave Iwo the first dualised road; he rebuilt the City Centre, and then built another eight roads in addition to reviving the water corporation so that there is water in some communities. So, the people of Iwo look at things the governor did and said, “Wow, so governance is this easy?” He did the same thing at Ila. He went and built them the first dualisation road in addition to other roads. So, those ones looked too; “Is it just easy to just develop a zone like this?” The same thing at Ilesa; that palace to brewery junction has been on the pipeline since UPN days. So, the governor delivered excessively, not just in the state capital, but across major towns. So the people of Osun looked at him and said this is the man that came and was paying the half salary backlog, that some people said is not payable. This is the man that came that was paying all the pensions; he paid almost N100 billion of the pension debts; paid two-thirds of the half salary debt he inherited. The man that came and bought 31 tractors. As at that time he bought 31 tractors, Osun State government had no single tractor. The man that provided seedlings—cocoa, cashew, palm oil, and all sorts. The man that gave Osun State the first ICT policy, created digital economy, governance advisory council. A man that raised Osun State in terms of climate change from nothing to number one. So, Osun people looked at him and said, “Oh, this man is not just a dancing governor. This is a governor that is also delivering.” And so, second factor, the people of Osun. You know I said the first factor is God, second factor, the people of Osun, in terms of their appreciation of good governance and in terms of their defence of democracy, even in the face of violence.

Do you credit other entities for the outcome?

I just mentioned those two factors that were critical. Of course, you also want to commend INEC; INEC did a good job. The election materials got to the polling centres early. The uploading of results on BVAS was also done well.

But there was a three-hour window when we got no new results on INEC’s result viewing portal and that drew concerns from various stakeholders, including the governor’s nephew, Davido.

Yes, everybody was scared, but we will give it to them that maybe it was just some technical issues, maybe they were clearing some things internally before they went public with the results. But when you look at the process from the morning to voting time to collation time from polling unit to ward unit to local government, you want to commend INEC that they did a fantastic job. When they now moved to the state collation, they moved well until it got to 80% of the votes — I think they had a technical issue they had to sort out. I guess that was what caused the delay. And eventually, when they overcame those, they now moved on to announce the results.

We also want to thank the Nigerian Tribune management and staff for all the support, for standing by democracy, for being the voice of democracy. Thank you sincerely.

Before the election, there was a deluge of security agencies converging on Osun – more than 15,000 police officers and 10,000 civil defence personnel of the police — and some were complaining of a militarised election, speculating that voters could be afraid to come out. You already credited the people of Osun for defying all odds to turn out to vote. What do you think about the security agencies?

As to the conduct of the security agencies, we need to divide this into two phases: the pre-election security situation and the election day security situation. As to pre-election, the jury is out; people largely picked holes in the activities of the security agencies. You know, the level of pre-election violence was unprecedented; Accord lost close to 20 members, almost 30 are injured from gunshots, over 60 of our leaders were arrested, not by APC, but by security agencies for no reason, other than that they belong to PDP. Houses of PDP leaders were burst into at Ikire, Ilesa, everywhere. Even our SSG was arrested. Many of us were put on watchlist. So when you look at the pre-election period, you see the rating of the security agencies is definitely very low. But on the election day rating, what we discovered was that there was absolute security and there were very few cases of security men harassing voters. Although there were few incidents of people trying to snatch ballot boxes and all those, but you know Osun people are very vigilant; there was even a citizen arrest of people that wanted to snatch ballot boxes. There was a particular polling unit that somebody used an armoured tank to steal ballot boxes and people were using okada to chase him until they stopped him. You see, Osun people actually showed the model of how democracy works. Democracy works when the citizens are fully active and alive to their responsibility.

So, when you want to rate the security agencies, will you give them negative mark for pre-election; on the day of election, you may want to give them pass mark, because election went and there were no attacks as such; there were incidents, but when you compare what happened pre-election when it was truly scary, election day was a success. In fact, many of us, myself and many of our leaders, we could not sleep at all prior to the election. We were busy sleeping from one place to another place, because it was war! In fact, at a point, we all saw that only one thing can save us, and that one thing was God and God came to our rescue. On the day of election, it’s like there was a blanket of peace cast over Osun and suddenly, our people turned out at 6 am; you saw voters everywhere early in the morning. At Bless, which was the epicentre of violence, people came out and were still voting as at 2:00pm. So, was then that we knew that God has truly taken charge. So, for security agencies, I will say pre-election, we give them very low rating. But election day, we should give it to them. They did a fantastic job.

You have mentioned the violence aspect of the election which has been widely described as unprecedented. The Adeleke administration announced a N500 million endowment fund for victims of the election violence. Beyond that financial relief, what security and legislative measures have been prioritised to heal the partisan tensions across communities affected by the violence?

Before we go to the compensation package, the governor (on Thursday, August 27) announced another initiative: a Commission of Inquiry that will look into remote and immediate causes of the pre-election political violence. It is going to be headed by a judge and other members of security agencies, public interest lawyers. Now, the inquiry commission will take memorandum from all residents and citizens, irrespective of political affiliation; people that were affected, the memorandum will expectedly not just talk about the victims, it will also talk about what can be done to avoid similar incidents in the future. So, the governor announced that initiative (on Thursday). In a few weeks, the governor will inaugurate the Commission of Inquiry. The commission will have a public sitting, and will take evidence and memorandum from the public. Now, that is the first initiative. That initiative, we thought, will provide comprehensive report on why we had so much violence and what can be done to actually stop recurrence of similar incidents in the nearest future. The second initiative is to actually monetarily compensate people that lost loved ones, people that were injured, people that lost their property, resources, and all those. It is not that money can replace their lost loved ones, but at least it can at least take care of the basic needs of the victims.

READ ALSO: Adeleke’s victory, divine validation of his efforts, says Oyinlola

The governor has also engaged in terms of scholarship for children of people that lost their lives. Many of our leaders are already doing that. So, those two initiatives are meant to stabilise the polity to ensure that we actually look into this: why did we have so much violence? Why did we have people shooting guns? Why did we have people killing just because of election? Public office is about service to the people. Why must we kill because we want to serve? The governor has also done something he has said before the election, and he has repeated it (on Thursday) in his state broadcast that he had; the governor told the people, “Don’t engage in reprisals. Don’t take laws into your hands.” He commended the people of Osun State for following his admonition and choosing peace. And that is why the scale of violence was even minimised, because if not that the people listened to the governor not to engage in reprisals, Osun would have been turned into a battlefield. But the people listened to the governor and abided by the law; they took their cases to court and never raised a finger to fight back when they were under attack. So, that has really helped Osun. The process of healing has started; the governor has promised to ensure that he heals the wounds of the violence, and the wounds of the election so that we can proceed to governance and development.

Lastly, on the pre-election front, we saw a sitting senator, Senator Francis Fadahunsi of Osun East, tell members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to attack members of the party to apparently kill members of Accord as reprisal for alleged attacks on APC members. He has denied the kill directive and the police are probing his statement, but is there anything that the state government is doing on its own part to demand accountability for incendiary statements made pre-election?

Mr Governor is a man of rule of law. You know, when there is a violation of the law, the relevant agencies are expected to take it up and act. Now, in the case of the senator you mentioned, the security agencies have taken it up. He was summoned. I think he was on administrative bail. And our thinking is that they are still investigating the matter. Some other interest groups like Amnesty International have taken up the matter. Some people are already thinking of petitioning the International Criminal Court (ICC) and some other bodies, but within the state government circles, we are law-abiding. We know the security agencies are on top of the matter, and it is not for the state government to now interfere. Having said that, we expect the police authority to do the needful.

During the campaign, Governor Adeleke emphasised transitioning Osun from a predominantly civil-service-driven economy towards a broader industrial hub. What concrete infrastructure or policy initiatives should residents expect in the first 100 days of his second mandate to drive that economic shift?

Thank you very much. The governor said a continuous effort to industrialise the State of Osun. In the first term, he has laid some foundation. The first foundation was what we call the Ease of Doing Business. In the first term, the tax process was harmonised and digitised. In other words, there is now a single point for paying taxes. Instead of having multiple taxation, what the governor did was to ensure that all possible, likely taxes that you are supposed to pay are embedded in one-line charge, and you pay at once. That one is running. The second thing is when you want to industrialise, industrialists, investors need access to land. So, the governor reformed the land allocation system. So, we now have a 45-day window to get your C of O. In other words, once you get online, you upload necessary documents, under 45 days, you are supposed to get your C of O. And that is also producing results. We now have many investors coming in, because land has always been the issue, but the governor tackled it immediately. And I can tell you, this has really helped us. The third ground is the opening up of the free trade zone. Osun has a free trade zone that was lying fallow and the concept of free trade zone, you know, is for businesses to come in. The free trade zone is a tax-free zone; in fact, it is a foreign land within a sovereign land. So, anything you produce there, you won’t pay tax. You are supposed to just take it out for export and all those. So, the governor has actually expanded and opened up the free trade zone. Those were all in the governor’s first term. Now, we opened up the free trade zone to ensure that we have more businesses coming in; they don’t have to worry about taxes since the free trade zone is a tax-free zone. Now, the governor also moved into the agriculture sector by purchasing tractors.

Now, building on his first-term efforts for industrialisation, the governor is moving spiritedly to now drive in more investors into the free trade zones. Now, we are driving more businesses. We have almost 35 companies active that have come in this first term. We expect that now that the situation has changed, more businesses will come in. Then, the governor is encouraging agro-processing. Now, mechanisation will be expanded so that people can produce more. So, it is already in the pipeline. The governor is directing the Ministry of Agriculture to work on agro-processing. In other words, there will be many agro-processing companies all over the state, processing agricultural products before you think of exporting and reaching out to bigger markets. So, this is ongoing.

The governor is also working on setting up what we call industrial hubs in the three senatorial districts. The concept of industrial hubs is for the government to clear an area, provide infrastructure, and businesses will come in, and companies will come in to set up factories and produce. That is also in the pipeline. So, a whole lot of policies and programmes are in place. And, of course, you are aware that the ease of mobility is linked to industrial investment. So, the governor has opened up the state in terms of road connectivity. When you are producing, you also need to move whatever you are producing to the market. Most people do not know that Erunmu in Oyo State has a dry port and Erunmu to Osun is less than 20 kilometers. So, we want all our roads to be in good shape so that when we produce goods in the free trade zones and those industrial centres, it will be easy for them to be moved. So, the governor has a very strong template that, by God’s grace, when implemented, will take Osun out of our current civil service-focused position.

With landmark achievements like the Lagere Flyover in Ile-Ife defining the governor’s flagship wins of the first term, what major infrastructure projects will be prioritised for actual execution over the next four years?

Now, you know the first tenure of Mr. Governor is still running and will end by November 27. By then, the governor will now unfold or unveil the second-term agenda across the sectors like he did when he assumed office in 2022. Remember, by December 2023, the governor came up with the Osun Investment Infrastructure Development Plan, which he implemented under 100 days. Then, he announced a second one in 2024, which he has also completed. So, the governor is going to unveil the major projects, both infrastructure, sectoral-based, and all, by November 27. That is on the day of his inauguration. So, we are still running and we still have time.

In Governor Adeleke’s victory address, he reiterated his endorsement for the President and also travelled to the Presidential Villa to present his certificate of return. One of the reasons he cited is ensuring that the state keeps a good relationship with the Federal Government. As of now, the local government allocations have still not been released to Osun. Has he received any promises regarding the release of the local government allocations?

We just need to get the background right. The first one is that the case is still in court, and you know when a matter is in court, normally you allow the judicial process to run and conclude. That is one. Second thing is that you can apply political solutions around the judicial processes, and that is also a possibility. But on both counts, you know, Mr Governor visited Mr President, discussions are ongoing as to how best to conclusively resolve the local government crisis. But I can tell you steps are being taken. But we should just remember that the case is in court, and the judicial process is running, though political solutions can also come in. But there are talks that are ongoing, as far as the local government is concerned.

As to the issue of the relationship between the federal and state governments. You know, on Arise TV, when I was asked that question, I said the governor mentioned five reasons why he endorsed Mr President. Mr President is his kinsman, so he has every right to support his kinsman. Two, Mr President is what I would call, not just his kinsman, he is a Yoruba man holding the presidency, and of course, you have a duty to stand by your man every time he is on war front. Of course, you need the Federal Government so that there can be federal attention to whatever is happening in your state. There are many federal roads that need attention; of course, you have to build a good relationship with the Federal Government too, because the resources at the centre are also limited. So, allocating resources can also be political. So, the governor also has a duty to be on the same page as Mr President. And also, the adoption predates the governor’s election. Since the time he was in PDP, he had been endorsing Mr President, and when he got to Accord, he adopted Mr President. When he was campaigning, he adopted Mr President. At his final rally at Ile-Ife, he also endorsed Mr President. So, the adoption thing is not, “Let me just do it.” No, the governor is genuine about it. The governor is sincere about it. He is convinced that having the President running for another term is in the best interest of the state and Osun. So, generally speaking, the local government matter is an ongoing discussion, and that will soon be resolved.

So, the governor does not blame President Tinubu for the perceived Federal Government interference in the election?

No, you see, the issue of blame game won’t come in because the people have spoken. When you go to an election, whatever advantage you have, you deploy it and eventually, there will be an outcome. In our own case, the governor had his record of service to the people. He did one term and said to the people: “E wo, emi ni mo ṣe eleyi fun yin. I was the one who did all of these for you. When they [APC] were there, they did not do anything for you, tell the other.” And people said, “Yes o, you are right.” People now said, “Look, this man has a good record.” So, the record was one of our assets that the governor deployed. Second advantage was appreciation of the people, that “This man has done this for us, why would we say he should not be re-elected? Why? This man should complete the good work he’s doing.” So, you get it; those are our own arsenal, our own electoral strength, and the governor deployed that. That’s for Accord.

The other camp also thought that they had strength, and they had money, they had this, they had that, they also deployed them. But because we are running a democracy, the people triumphed. And the people did not just triumph by voting, they defended their vote. But of course, we hold on to God so much, because God is the giver and taker. He is the one that enthrones kings, and he is the one that dethrones kings. So, in our own case, we thought, apart from having the people, having our own goodwill, our own record of service to the people, we should hold tight to God. And that was why on the Friday to that election, we had what we called Night of Victory, because it was a night of praise singing to God, that let his will be done, and his will was done.

Moving forward to 2027, now that the governor is free from the headache of getting elected, what are his plans to campaign for the president? And does he have plans to campaign against the APC senators and House of Representatives members who antagonised him in the August 15 election?

Let me clarify something. Accord has senatorial candidates and House of Representatives candidates. And of course, next year, we are having House of Assembly elections too. The governor is standing by the National Assembly candidates of his party. He is campaigning fully for them. We don’t have any deal, the governor has no deal to abandon his National Assembly candidates. There is no deal like that.

Now, as to Mr President, the only endorsement Mr Governor gave was for Mr President. Accord has no presidential candidate. The only candidate the governor has endorsed is Mr President. And the governor has promised to campaign for Mr President because of those reasons I earlier cited: he is his kinsman, he is a Yoruba man, he is a Southerner, we need federal cooperation, and, of course, we hope all the reforms being embarked on by Mr President succeed so that this nation can move ahead. So, the issue of abandoning our lawmakers, there is no cooperation like that. In fact, I can tell you we are starting our campaign for our National Assembly candidates very soon. But as for Mr President, Mr Governor has said we will come out to campaign openly for Mr President.