Only a person who is not politically attentive would pretend that much of the noise, tension, and episodic instability around Osun State local government is “ordinary politics.” It is, in truth, the struggle for the soul and direction of the state, and the unresolved ambition for power after the defeat of Oyetola.
Since 2022, Osun has lived with a politics that often behaves like an election that never ended. Even after the Court of Appeal restored Senator Ademola Adeleke’s mandate in March 2023, and the Supreme Court subsequently affirmed him as Governor in May 2023, the contest has continued in tone, posture, and narrative warfare.
That context matters, because it helps the public separate performance from propaganda. The push to delegitimise the current administration is frequently framed as “rescue,” “reclaim,” or “correcting an error,” yet much of it reads less like a people-driven movement and more like a personal and party project of reversal by a former Governor who lost power and has never truly accepted that the electorate moved on. When political energy is invested mainly in returning to office, the state becomes a battleground of narratives instead of a laboratory of development. Osun deserves better than permanent election season.
The more inconvenient truth for that brand of politics is this. Governor Adeleke has, by many measurable signals and public expectations, performed beyond what even sceptics anticipated. Osun people have seen a governor who is visibly present, politically accessible, and unusually deliberate about projecting government as service.
Consider the most emotionally sensitive issue in Osun’s recent governance history, workers’ welfare. Under the previous administration, the “modulated salary” era became a defining wound in the relationship between government and labour, including partial payments and deductions that created a backlog of grievances.
In contrast, the Adeleke administration moved to clear deductions and outstanding components linked to the modulated salary period, covering specific months in 2019 and 2020, as part of efforts to close that chapter. Those choices are not mere optics. In a civil service-heavy state like Osun, timeliness of salary and seriousness about clearing inherited arrears translate into social stability, household confidence, and a calmer labour environment.
Now to the issue of resources and borrowing, where political honesty is often in short supply. Opposition messaging can be dramatic, but debt and fiscal management are stubbornly factual. Osun’s debt profile has been at the centre of public debate, and the current administration has tied part of its legitimacy to demonstrating restraint and reducing inherited burdens.
For example, one widely reported account, citing Debt Management Office figures, states that Osun’s total domestic and foreign debt reduced from about ₦331.4 billion as at December 2022 to about ₦193.7 billion as at June 2024. Those figures tell an important story, not merely of spending, but of deliberate debt management and a political choice to stabilise rather than mortgage the future.
This is also where the comparison with the former administration becomes politically unavoidable. The Oyetola years were repeatedly associated in public conversation with borrowing and fiscal pressure, and the post-election period saw sharp controversy over whether new borrowing was taken near the end of that tenure. TheCable reported allegations from the Adeleke camp that an ₦18 billion facility was taken after Oyetola’s defeat, a claim that Oyetola’s media office publicly denied, with both sides exchanging documentation and counterclaims.
The value of recalling that episode is not to litigate it in the media, but to underline a principle. Osun people have grown tired of debt-driven governance arguments that are never matched with transparent, lived benefits. If the current administration is persuading citizens, it is partly because it has made fiscal discipline and worker welfare central to its public identity, and partly because Osun people remember what fiscal anxiety felt like.
Performance, of course, is not only about money. It is also about legitimacy, empathy, and the daily feel of government. Adeleke’s strongest political advantage is that he has successfully recast the Osun governorship as a pro-people office, not as a distant power centre. That alone disrupts the older culture where citizens were expected to endure hardship as normal. When a government prioritises labour peace, reduces inherited fiscal burdens, and stays publicly accountable, it becomes harder to sell a “return at all costs” project as a moral necessity.
This is why the Osun contest between Adeleke and Oyetola should be understood properly. It is not merely a contest of two men. It is a contest between two political logics. One logic says election outcomes must be respected, governance judged on delivery, and political competition deferred to the next legitimate cycle. The other logic keeps the state on edge by constantly attempting to reframe the present as illegitimate, regardless of court finality and regardless of visible governance efforts. Osun cannot afford the second logic if it wants to consolidate stability, attract investor confidence, and keep the social temperature low.
The question, then, is simple and democratic. If Governor Adeleke is truly failing, the opposition has a clean remedy. Build an alternative, persuade the people, and contest at the proper time. But if the real driver is the refusal to accept defeat and the impatience to regain the seat, then Osun people should name it for what it is, ambition dressed up as public interest. The state deserves opposition that critiques policy, not opposition that treats governance itself as a temporary inconvenience until power returns.
Adeleke’s administration will still be judged, rightly, by results, by roads, schools, hospitals, security collaboration, revenue reforms, and the integrity of public spending. But in the central argument of today’s Osun politics, one fact remains difficult to erase. Adeleke is popular, and his policies are popular.
Many citizens have stated clearly that Adeleke has exceeded expectations, and that Oyetola should let his grievances rest.
Pelumi Olajengbesi is a Legal Practitioner and writes from Abuja.
