Osun Poll: Shehu Sani Says Adeleke Stands Alone Against APC
Former Kaduna Central Senator, Shehu Sani, says Governor Ademola Adeleke of Osun State is fighting Saturday’s governorship election largely on his own, as senior leaders of the All Progressives Congress converged on the state while comparable opposition figures stayed away.
Sani made the observation on his X handle as voting continued on August 15, arguing that the imbalance in high level political presence had left the incumbent exposed. He wrote that the “big shots” of the ruling party were in Osun for the election while their opposition counterparts were “somewhere else,” leaving Adeleke, in his words, to “battle for his life.” He illustrated the point with an image of a zebra surrounded by a pride of lions, a comparison he said reflected the scale of the challenge facing the governor.
His remarks followed a show of force by the APC three days earlier. At a mega rally in Osogbo on August 13, Senate President Godswill Akpabio represented President Bola Tinubu alongside the party’s national chairman, Professor Nentawe Yilwatda; pioneer national chairman Chief Bisi Akande; and Imo State Governor Hope Uzodimma, who chairs the APC’s national campaign council for the Osun election. Also present, according to reports of the rally, were Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Ondo’s Lucky Aiyedatiwa, Ogun’s Dapo Abiodun, Kwara’s AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, Yobe’s Mai Mala Buni, Edo’s Monday Okpebholo, Ekiti’s Abiodun Oyebanji and Kogi’s Usman Ododo, along with the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Abbas Tajudeen, and Minister of Marine and Blue Economy Adegboyega Oyetola, the APC’s own defeated 2022 candidate in the state.
Adeleke, seeking a second term on the Accord Party platform after leaving the PDP in late 2025, did not draw a comparable gathering of national opposition figures. Atiku Abubakar, the ADC’s leading national figure, campaigned in Osogbo in the race’s final days, but for the ADC’s own candidate, Najeem Salaam, rather than for Adeleke. A faction of the PDP issued a statement backing Adeleke after a Court of Appeal ruling on its candidacy, but without a matching visit from senior national party figures.
Sani had made a related point two days earlier, arguing in a separate post that a divided opposition, together with what he described as close ties between ADC members in Osun and the APC, would make it difficult for Adeleke to retain the governorship without “a miracle or magic.”
Sani, a rights activist and writer who left the Senate in 2019, has emerged as one of the more prominent independent voices commenting on the Osun contest. Earlier in the campaign, he had also dismissed a separate appeal by Afrobeats star Davido, the governor’s nephew, for United States President Donald Trump to monitor the election, arguing that Trump was unlikely to intervene in Nigerian electoral matters.
Sani did not name Adeleke directly in his latest post, and his assessment reflects his own political reading of the contest rather than a confirmed account of either campaign’s strength on the ground. Voting closed at 2.30pm on Saturday, and collation of results was ongoing as at the time of filing, with the outcome yet to be officially declared.