Osun 2026: Did Oke just reveal APC’s rigging plot? -By Sarafa Ibrahim

For sometime now, members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Osun state have projected the notion that there may be no election for the governorship seat in the state in 2026 but selection. And on Saturday, a recent recruit by the party, Oluwole Oke, echoed that projection which is being shared by many APC elements that ballots may not count in the 2026 governorship election, but manipulations.

He declared that the APC will win the election, not because of any metric of performance. He even went on to project the likely figure (45,000) that would give Osun to the APC, providing a clear understanding that results may be the reflection of the wishes of electorates as seen with the eventual outcome of the 2018 governorship poll.

Anyone who is familiar with Oke very well will know that he doesn’t just talk for the fun of it and so, he could have inadvertently let out what the APC plan to do in the next year’s governorship poll. And drawing from the Edo governorship election experience, it would be so hard to dismiss the clear hint he gave as nothing, because the APC appeared to be notorious in circumventing the will of the people, oftentimes replacing the wishes of the majority with the manipulation of a narrow few.

Since 2015 when APC took over the central government, manipulation and outright disenfranchisement has greatly eroded the gains recorded in the country’s electoral process. Funnily, Osun suffered from the APC distaste for the prevalence of the people’s will in 2018 when a Senator Ademola Adeleke win on the first ballot was violently snatched to hand the mandate of the people to Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola, with a less than 400 votes through a skewed rerun.

This appears to be what the APC is inching at again, utilizing its control of the electoral umpire and security agents, to foist a different choice from what the casted ballot says on the people. That is how much low the APC is willing to drag our democracy down just to snatch power. So unfortunate.

Democracy, almost everywhere it is being practiced, is about the people making their leadership. In fact, what appeal to people about democracy, is the power it entrusted on the people to determines those who administers their affairs. The moment that change, the essence of democracy is lost and that is the unfortunate situation that the APC is creating. Democracy will mean nothing if writing figures, manipulating results and other undemocratic approaches, are what throw up an elected leader, and not the people through the ballots.

In ‘How Democracy Die’, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt pointed out four indicators that a democracy could descend in peril. The indicators include rejection of (or weak commitment to) democratic rule of the game, denial of legitimacy of political opponents, toleration or encouragement of violence, and readiness to curtail the civil liberties of opponents, including the media.

To a great extent, the APC ticks all the boxes. Since losing election in 2022, the APC has not hidden its disdain for democratic rules and penchant for manipulating institutions to frustrate the manifestation of the people’s will. It demonstrated this much recently when it unlawfully invaded secretariats by misrepresenting judicial pronouncement in a failed power grab agenda.

By all measures, Governor Adeleke has done incredibly well and this explains why Osun people are firmly behind him. A free and fair election will definitely throw him up for another term in office because his governance deliveries trump up the misgovernance that characterised the APC time in power in the state.

This is apparently why the APC is doing everything to avoid a transparent election and trying to leverage influence of federal institutions, such as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to force itself on Osun people. It must be the reason why Oke ran to the APC in the first place, because just the like the APC, he detest a fair and transparent contest.

In less than three years in office, Governor Adeleke has effected good governance and put a stop to the pains of the people. Workers and pensioners who had thought their 30 months half-salary owed to them can no longer be redeemed because Oyetola made no effort to pay even a single month, have been receiving the money while some pensioners have received their full payments. Every pensioners in Osun state are placed on a full healthcare coverage, relieving the senior citizens of the trouble of managing their health at old age.

At the moment, Osun table for implementing minimum wage is one of the best in the country just as the audio promotion given to them by the Oyetola administration has been regularised with full financial benefits by Governor Adeleke. There is no how workers who gets a minimum wage of N75,000 and pensioners who have seen a tremendous change in their welfare will want to go back to the time of pains and anguish, which the APC represented. So, their choice in election can be well decipher ahead.

While the APC present development as something that cannot go around at a time, leaving many towns with broken infrastructure, Governor Adeleke showed that isn’t true. In less than three years, many towns hitherto forgotten by the APC have felt the presence of government, with legacy projects like dual carriageway and flyover initiated in at least five major towns at the same time.

Public schools and healthcare centres infrastructure are being wholly revived from the hopeless situation that the APC left them. New tractors, firefighting trucks which the APC presented as impossible because for twelve years, it could not buy a single of either of them, have been bought by Governor Adeleke.

It is so hard to see what exactly the APC did better than Governor Adeleke to sway Osun people to vote for it other than pains. Yes, Osun APC inflicted so much pains on the people to the point that churches and NGOs set up food banks in the state to ameliorate the hardship faced by the people, especially workers.

All this time, the economy of the state crumbled as the civil servants and pensioners that service it couldn’t do so because they were starved of their due entitlement. Now, Osun economy is bustling again, as workers have more money in their hands to transact goods and services, breathing life on it. Market women and even transport unions can attest to improved economic activities compared to what was obtainable under the APC.

It is all these people that will vote and there is no how they will choose those who deliberately exert pains on them through underdevelopment and poor interest in their welfare. It is the more than 50,000 people who have received life-saving medical helps, including surgeries, through the Imole Surgical and Medical Outreach that will vote and they will definitely not choose those who left them for dead due to no support at all. Governor Adeleke will most certainly be their choice over any other choice.

Through the Imole Surgical and Medical Outreach, no fewer than 50,000 people have benefited from free healthcare services that range from surgeries for cataracts, pterygium, hernia, and some swelling on the body.

As the 2026 governorship election lurks in Osun state, the entire world is waiting patiently to see whether democracy will be given a chance in Osun with the will of the people prevailing or writing results, which will give the APC 45,000 advantage as Oke hinted, will be what manifest.

• Sarafa Ibrahim is a Special Assistant to the Osun State Governor and writes from Iwo, Osun state.