Davido, Not Adeleke, Was Target Of Osogbo Convoy Attack, Police Say
Gunfire tore through the centre of Osogbo on Wednesday afternoon shortly after Governor Ademola Adeleke left the palace of the Ataoja of Osogbo, leaving one man dead and exposing sharp differences between the state government and the police over what actually happened and how many people were harmed.
The Osun State Police Command confirmed that a 60-year-old man, Tajudeen Yusuf, was shot dead in the Ita-Olokan area of Osogbo at about 4pm on Wednesday, shortly after the governor visited the monarch. That account contradicts the initial position of the state government, whose information commissioner had earlier insisted that no life was lost in the incident.
According to the police, the shooting was not an assassination attempt on the governor. In a statement issued by the Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Abiodun Ojelabi, the command said preliminary findings indicated that suspected members of a cult group were attempting to reach Davido, who had accompanied the governor to the electoral commission office and the palace. The police named one Adebayo Taoreed, also known as “Small Rugged”, described as an ex-convict and suspected thug, as the person who allegedly tried to gain access to Davido before being resisted by the musician’s security team, a confrontation that reportedly drew in other suspected gang members in the vicinity.
The police said the suspects temporarily blocked the entrance to the palace and obstructed movement before the governor’s convoy left the area safely, and that the gang members allegedly shot Yusuf dead as they fled. The victim was found in a pool of blood and rushed to a teaching hospital in Osogbo, where he was pronounced dead.
The timeline is not in dispute. Adeleke arrived at the Ataoja’s palace at about 3:15pm in a convoy of about 20 vehicles after collecting his certificate of return from the Independent National Electoral Commission following his re-election, and reportedly presented the certificate to the monarch before the meeting closed with prayers. Trouble broke out as the governor prepared to leave, with an eyewitness saying the attackers arrived in an unregistered Sienna bus through the Ita Olokan axis and that the shooting lasted between 12 and 15 minutes as the governor’s security detail exchanged fire with them. Residents said the gunmen later engaged the convoy again near the Osogbo Central Mosque before fleeing towards Ita-Olokan along the Osogbo Ilesa Road.
The state government’s first public reaction played down the severity. The Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment, Kolapo Alimi, confirmed the attack but said no one was hurt. “They are hoodlums, and the governor’s security repelled them. They attacked the governor’s convoy at Ataoja’s palace. No casualty,” he said. The police account of a fatality, released later, leaves that “no casualty” claim unresolved, and neither the government nor the command has yet reconciled the two positions publicly.
The Ataoja of Osogbo, Oba Jimoh Olanipekun Oyetunji, Larooye II, who has occupied the throne since 2010 as the 21st monarch of the ancient town, hosted the governor without incident. The violence took place outside the palace precincts and in the surrounding streets rather than during the courtesy visit itself.
On the investigation, the police said they had opened a full inquiry. Ojelabi said detectives had commenced a full-scale investigation and intensified efforts to identify, apprehend and bring the fleeing suspects to justice. The Commissioner of Police for the election, Samuel Etaifo, condemned the incident, directed operatives to intensify the manhunt, and appealed to residents with useful information to come forward. As of the time this report was compiled, the command had not announced any arrests over the killing or confirmed the number of attackers or the weapons used.
The attack matters because of when it happened and who was in the convoy. It came only four days after one of the most closely watched governorship polls in the South West and while political temperatures in the state remain high ahead of forthcoming local government elections.
Adeleke secured a second term in unusual circumstances. Having won the 2022 election on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, he defected and contested this time under the Accord Party. INEC declared him winner on Sunday after the State Returning Officer, Professor Joshua Ogunwole, announced the collated results at the state centre in Osogbo. Official figures put Adeleke’s tally at 511,067 votes against 444,815 for his closest rival, Munirudeen Bola Oyebamiji of the All Progressives Congress, a margin of 66,252 votes, with Najeem Salaam of the African Democratic Congress a distant third on 17,180. Adeleke carried 19 of the state’s 30 local government areas, including Osogbo itself, while Oyebamiji took 11. Fourteen political parties were cleared for the contest after both the PDP and the Labour Party failed to field candidates.
Placed beside the previous cycle, the result shows a widening lead. In 2022, Adeleke defeated the then incumbent, Gboyega Oyetola, by 402,979 votes to 375,077, winning 17 local government areas. His 2026 margin of more than 66,000 votes is well above the roughly 28,000-vote gap of four years earlier, and his geographic spread grew from 17 to 19 councils. Provisional turnout data compiled during collation suggested a modest rise in participation compared with 2022, when official turnout stood at about 42 per cent, with more than two million voters registered and about 81.5 per cent of them having collected their permanent voter cards.
That electoral history carries its own security memory. The 2022 result was overturned by an election petition tribunal in January 2023, which awarded the seat to Oyetola, before higher courts restored Adeleke to office on appeal. The prospect of similar litigation, combined with the immediate transition into local government contests, keeps the political environment tense.
The Osogbo shooting also fits a wider pattern of political and cult-linked violence in the state in recent weeks. Earlier in August, gunfire disrupted a political rally in Ilesa, and the police later confirmed the arrest of a serving state commissioner in connection with that incident. Separately, the command announced the arrest of multiple suspects over an attempted murder in Modakeke and an alleged cult invasion of a state polytechnic, incidents the police tied to confraternity activity. The reference by investigators to a named cult group in the Wednesday attack places the Osogbo violence within that recurring pattern rather than treating it as an isolated event.
Several important questions remain open. The identity and number of the attackers have not been established, no arrest has been announced, and the police account that the musician was the intended target rests on preliminary findings rather than concluded investigation. The discrepancy between the government’s “no casualty” statement and the police confirmation of a death has not been formally addressed. What is confirmed is that a 60-year-old resident was killed, that the governor and his entourage left the scene unhurt, and that the command has opened an investigation. Any conclusion beyond that would be premature until the police release their findings.