Adeleke, Oyebamiji Trade Claims Over Osun Finances

Four frontline candidates in Saturday’s Osun State governorship election used a televised town hall in Osogbo on Tuesday to defend their records and stake competing claims on the state’s finances, days after a controversial move by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to freeze the state government’s accounts thrust Osun’s public finances to the centre of the campaign.

Governor Ademola Adeleke, seeking a second term on the platform of the Accord Party; the All Progressives Congress candidate, Asiwaju Munirudeen Bola Oyebamiji; the African Democratic Congress candidate, Dr Najeem Salaam; and the African Action Congress candidate, Olajide Esan, fielded questions at the Arise Television Town Hall Meeting, moderated by a panel that included Reuben Abati, Lasisi Olagunju, Festus Adedayo and Adesuwa Omoruan.

The town hall took place against an unusual political backdrop. Adeleke resigned from the Peoples Democratic Party, on whose platform he won the governorship in 2022, on 4 November 2025, and joined the Accord Party two days later, becoming the first incumbent governor in Osun to seek re-election on a different party’s ticket. The Independent National Electoral Commission has cleared 14 candidates for Saturday’s poll, but neither the PDP nor the Labour Party, both of which contested in 2022, fielded a candidate that features prominently in the race. The PDP’s Osun chairman, Sunday Bisi, has said the party’s structure in the state is instead backing Adeleke’s re-election under Accord, even though a PDP candidate remains on the ballot on paper.

Adeleke defeated the then incumbent, Gboyega Oyetola of the APC, by 28,344 votes in 2022, winning 17 of the state’s 30 local government areas to Oyetola’s 13. That contest, like most Osun governorship elections since 1999, was followed by a tribunal challenge; Adeleke’s mandate was initially overturned before the Court of Appeal and later the Supreme Court restored it. Osun has a longer history of post-election litigation than most Nigerian states, a pattern several candidates alluded to on Tuesday when they called for the poll to be free, fair and peaceful.

Adeleke, the first to speak, rejected suggestions that the support of the Federal Government and allied APC governors for Oyebamiji would sway the outcome, describing himself as “a bulldozer” who was not afraid of “federal might.” He said the governors backing his opponent were his friends who “won’t vote; they can only come and dance,” and denied allegations that his administration had militarised the state, noting that he has no constitutional authority to deploy the armed forces.

He listed infrastructure, healthcare, agriculture and security as the pillars of his record, citing about 350 kilometres of completed roads with a further 160 kilometres under construction, the rehabilitation of roughly 200 primary healthcare centres, the purchase of 31 tractors for farmers, and the recruitment and training of more than 1,500 Amotekun corps personnel. He dismissed APC claims that some of the roads were substandard as propaganda, and defended his public dancing at events as a personal habit unconnected to his performance in office. On the long-running “Edenisation” allegation, that his administration has concentrated development in his hometown of Ede, Adeleke said the town was chosen for a new airport project after officials assessed several possible sites and found it most suitable. He also voiced support for state policing, noting that he had championed the idea while a senator, and urged Osun residents to protect their votes and follow results from polling units to collation centres.

Oyebamiji rejected claims that the Federal Government was working to secure his victory, saying that in visits to 30 local government areas he had found no evidence to support the allegation. He said his priority would be tackling hunger and poverty through investment in agriculture, education and healthcare across the state, “not about an area… not about a town.”

The APC candidate’s sharpest intervention was on state finances. He said Osun received about N450 billion in total federal allocations across the twelve years that Rauf Aregbesola and Oyetola governed under the APC, compared with roughly N650 billion collected in Adeleke’s three and a half years in office, a jump he attributed largely to increased allocations following the removal of the petrol subsidy under President Bola Tinubu. “How does N650 billion match what we see in Osun today?” he asked, alleging that 97 per cent of the resources go to just two local government areas. He also insisted that Oyetola left about N15 billion in the treasury for Adeleke, disputing the incumbent administration’s long-standing position that it inherited empty coffers.

Those competing claims cannot be independently verified from the town hall alone; neither figure was accompanied by an audited breakdown, and both remain the assertions of a candidate rather than confirmed government data. They arrive, however, only days after the EFCC placed a Post No Debit order on an Osun State Government account on 5 August, citing a months-long investigation into the alleged mismanagement of about N11 billion in Ecology Funds, Intervention Funds and Federation Account Allocation Committee disbursements. The state government rejected the allegation and accused the commission of acting at the behest of Oyetola to disrupt salary payments ahead of the election, a claim the EFCC denied, saying its action was unconnected to the poll. President Tinubu subsequently directed the EFCC to return to court and vacate the freeze, saying he was “deeply embarrassed” by the timing of an action taken so close to the election, even though he did not fault the commission’s statutory power to investigate.

Salaam, presenting his academic background as a political scientist and his experience in public administration as qualifications for office, said his government would build on the achievements of previous administrations while correcting existing gaps. He argued that Osun’s history of political violence made peace the central issue of the election, saying residents were tired of “thuggery” and would back the candidate most likely to guarantee calm.

Esan pledged to return governance to residents rather than the other way round, proposing an Osun Residents Database to improve service delivery and a public financial dashboard that would let residents track government spending in real time. He argued greater transparency would discourage officeholders from treating governance as, in his words, a business opportunity.

With PDP structures aligned behind Adeleke, the APC positioning itself as the main challenger, and smaller parties such as the ADC and AAC pressing competence and accountability themes, Saturday’s election is being read as a genuine multi-way contest rather than the two-party race Osun has grown used to. Given the state’s record of near-automatic post-election litigation, and with the EFCC’s account freeze and its abrupt reversal still fresh, the outcome and its aftermath both in the tribunal and in Abuja are likely to remain under close national scrutiny well beyond polling day.