Omisore’s tantrums and aggressive campaign style – By Emmanuel Kupoluyi

In May 2023, former Governor Adegboyega Oyetola inaugurated a committee of eminent APC leaders, chaired by former Minister of Health, Professor Isaac Adewole, to reposition the party after the disappointing outcomes of the 2022 and 2023 elections. The committee submitted its report to Oyetola on September 8, 2023, identifying 14 critical reasons behind the party’s losses and recommending both immediate and long-term solutions. Among its key suggestions were promoting issue-based campaigns, carefully selecting credible candidates, and addressing the longstanding agitation for power shift to Osun West.

To implement these recommendations and foster party unity, the Sooko Tajudeen Lawal-led State Working Committee (SWC) published campaign guidelines for aspirants in the lead-up to the 2026 governorship election. Most aspirants have respected these rules, except one aspirant: former Deputy Governor, Iyiola Omisore, the man who has never won any free and fair election in his life, save for his time as running mate to Chief Bisi Akande in 1999. Omisore has continued to stir intra-party tensions. He has taken to the media and party meetings to throw unprovoked jabs, particularly at the party’s overall leader, Alhaji Adegboyega Oyetola, and other aspirants. The other time he said candidates from “small towns” can not defeat an incumbent from Ede because of its numerical strength, proposing that only a candidate from big towns like his own Ifeland can win for APC in 2026.

At a recent stakeholders’ meeting held in his Osogbo office, Omisore resorted to name-calling and divisive rhetoric. He described his co-aspirants as “political juveniles” unfit for the “serious project” of unseating the incumbent in 2026. He dismissed their grassroots campaign strategies, such as ward and local government tours, as “wasteful and tactless.” He also took veiled swipes at Oyetola, accusing him of weak leadership and failing to implement the Adewole report, which Omisore now boasts he will execute if given the chance.

But is the claim that Oyetola has abandoned the APC accurate? Not at all. Since the party lost power in November 2022, Oyetola has been its backbone in Osun State. For over two years, he personally covered the salaries of state party executives, funded the running of the secretariat, and handled the logistics of state-wide party activities. On the national front, he has facilitated over 100 federal and private-sector jobs for Osun indigenes. Many beneficiaries of these gestures remain fiercely loyal to him, especially in contrast to individuals who, after they were disgraced from the national secretariat, were rehabilitated with lucrative contracts under the Oyetola ministry, but now strangely showing ingratitude.

Perhaps because Oyetola is modest and avoids media fanfare, Omisore and his team have found space to spread a campaign of calumny. But facts remain facts.

Rather than testing his popularity through a transparent primary, Omisore seems to believe that, because he has become a political ancestor like ex-VP Atiku Abubakar, he deserves the APC ticket on a silver platter. One of his spokespersons, Jamiu Olawumi, recently said in an interview that all other aspirants should withdraw and endorse Omisore. He even bragged that, Omisore made President Bola Tinubu become the candidate of APC because as the National Secretary of APC, he controlled the delegate list and wielded influence over then National Chairman, Senator Abdullahi Adamu.

According to him, “as the National Secretary of the party, Omisore was in charge of the delegate list. He was also standing off to the former national chairman, Senator Abdullahi Adamu. Why I’m saying all of these is that the trick of just nominating somebody will not see the light of day. He indeed also worked for the ticket that produced the president, the sitting president now. And if you recall, in 2018, it was Iyiola Omisore who gave us the ticket, the victory against Adeleke, so that Mr. Gboyega Oyetola became the governor of Osun State. If he had not joined us the former governor Oyetola wouldn’t have been governor.”

Even if we accept this line of thoughf—that Omisore helped APC secure Oyetola’s win in 2018: has Oyetola not honoured him enough since then? Has he not shown tolerance and respect? Let posterity be the judge.

Back to the claim of Omisore on the implementation of the Adewole committee report. Does it not stand logic on its head that an Omisore, who is from Ife in Osun East, is promising to implement a report which advises that Osun West agitation should be considered when the APC chooses its next candidate?

No one is saying Omisore should not hype himself or arrogate to himself the existence of APC, but calling Oyetola unprintable names and going to national TV, as he did last week, to call his fellow aspirants as “newbies,” “neophytes” and “political juveniles” is unacceptable and the senator should be warned to desist from disparaging his party men. The leading aspirants in Osun APC are established politicians and all are capable of defeating the incumbent governor whose tenure has been dubbed as “fantastic failure.”

Mudasiru Hussein, from Ejigbo in Osun West, won a House of Representatives election in Lagos in 1999 when Omisore assumed his first political office. Hussein also defeated the senior Adeleke, the late Isiaka Adeleke, in 2011 to become a senator for Osun West. Ajibola Basiru, the current national secretary of the party and from Osun Central, is also an aspirant. He won a senate seat in 2019. Benedict Alabi, from Ikire in Osun West, also won an election as deputy governor to Oyetola in 2018. Akin Ogunbiyi, founder of Mutual Assurance PLC and from Ile-Ogbo, Osun West, was coasting home to victory in the 2018 PDP primaries before the abracadabra favoured Senator Ademola Adeleke. Dotun Babayemi, lawyer and son of the immediate Olufi of Gbongan, obtained over 40,000 votes under an obscure political party, ADP, in 2019 when he ran to become a senator. Bola Oyebamiji, popularly called AMBO, from Ikire in Osun West, is a two-term finance commissioner who became a household name in Osun in 2018 when he was touted to succeed Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola. There is also a fine Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Rasheed Adegoke, from Osogbo, in the rank. Jide Omoworare, from same Ife in Osun East with Omisore, polled 119,852 votes to defeat Omisore who got 51,315 votes in 2011. Omoworare did not only defeat Omisore in all the 10 local governments in Osun East, he equally defeated him in his Moore Ward 1, and Omisore had to struggle to win his polling unit with negligible 16 votes. When the two politicians first met in 2007, Omisore was described as an election rigger and asked to vacate his seat by the Court of Appeal because there was widespread electoral malpractices and violence during the April 2007 election. The Action Congress (AC) which nominated Omowarere then quietly withdrew from the re-run to save lives when it sensed the PDP resorted to one of the most virulent violence Osun politics has ever witness.

From available facts, Omisore may not be able to defeat any of the above mentioned APC aspirants because they have better names and integrity than him in the party and in the state. Where are his close associates in the PDP and SDP days? Where is Hon. Bade Falade, the Director General of his governorship campaign in 2018? Where is Hon. Jelili Adesiyan, the former Minister of Police Affairs? They are all in Oyebamiji AMBO’s camp, teeming up with the current MD of National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) to pick the APC guber ticket.

Omisore since 2011 has lost three elections back-to-back in the state: he lost Senate election woefully to Omowarere in 2011. In 2014, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola also defeated him with over 100,000 votes despite the federal might of the PDP. In 2018, he got miserable 128,053 votes as against Oyetola’s 255,505 votes. He also lost two of the four local government in his purported Ife stronghold. He lost Ife North and Ife South where his father, Oba David Olajide Omisore, was a traditional ruler until his death in 2022.

In 2022, when the APC banked on his political fecundity, APC lost Omisore’s adopted Ward in Ife East. And in the 2023 presidential election, President Bola Tinubu lost in Omisore’s Ward 1 and even in his St Gabriel Primary School Unit 3.

So what is Omisore’s boastfulness about? Why does he think other aspirants do not have the capacity to defeat Governor Adeleke? In 2022, APC won 6 of the 10 local governments in Osun West notwithstanding that Adeleke is from the zone, meaning that if the APC ticket is zoned to the senatorial district in 2026, the party has better chances of winning .

How many election did Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola win before he unsettled Chief Bisi Akande in 2003? How many elections did Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola win before dislodging the incumbent Oyinlola in 2007? The Oyinlola 2003 and Aregbesola 2007 experiences are clear indications that incumbent governors could be defeated by a political “newcomer.”

Omisore is an elder statesman, therefore should conduct his campaign with decency. He should not ignite the political war that scattered the then AD when he aspired to clinch the governorship ticket from Bisi Akande. The crisis which erupted led to the defeat of AD in 2003 poll. The APC cannot afford a similar implosion ahead of 2026. For the sake of unity, stability, and victory, Omisore must tone down his verbal attacks and embrace a campaign grounded in ideas, not insults.