The last governorship election in Osun State, where incumbent Governor Ademola Adeleke was said to have won 19 local government areas while the APC won in 11, has thrown up a lot of conversations regarding the commitment and loyalty of the party machinery to progressive ideals.
Many leaders of the party in Osogbo and Ife are said to have worked against the interest of the party, believing that this is their surest path to realising their personal ambitions, shrouded under a community-based “Osogbo Agenda” or “Ife Agenda.”
They fear that allowing the APC candidate, Asiwaju Munirudeen Bola Oyebamiji, popularly called AMBO, from Osun West Senatorial District, to become governor would mean conceding a total of 12 years to Osun West, having regard to the fact that Governor Adeleke, who is also from Osun West, has already spent four years in the saddles.
The proponents of the zoning arrangement believed that unless Adeleke was allowed to complete his second term, thereby giving them an opportunity to become governor in 2030, they would have to wait until 2034 to try their luck—a gamble they were not prepared to take.
One of the leaders of the APC in the state, Otunba Iyiola Omisore, is said to be the arrowhead of the anti-party activities in Ifeland, where he hails from.
The APC lost in his Ife East Local Government, his Moore Ward 1 and his St. Gabriel Primary School Polling Unit. In fact, the APC lost in 19 of the 22 polling units in Omisore’s ward.
This write-up will focus on him and return to the political quislings in Osogbo in subsequent write-ups.
Otunba Iyiola Omisore, whom many people describe pejoratively as “Atiku Osun,” in a reference to former Vice President of Nigeria, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar's long time struggle to become Nigeria's president, has been a perennial aspirant for the governorship of Osun State. He has contested and struggled to become governor since 1995, during the military era.
Omisore does not possess the political strength he touts to have. He lost three elections in a row since 2011. The only credible election he has ever won in his entire political career was the one he contested alongside Chief Bisi Akande in 1999.
He was in Agodi Prison in 2003 over the alleged murder of Chief Bola Ige when he was declared the winner of the Osun East Senatorial District election. The election was, however, fraught with allegations of electoral malpractice.
He was also declared winner in 2007, but the election was declared null and void by the court over massive rigging and violence.
In 2011, he contested for the Senate under the PDP but was trounced by Senator Jide Omoworare. Omisore polled 51,315 votes, while Omoworare polled 119,852 votes, a margin of over 60,000 votes.
He was defeated by the APC governorship candidate in 2014 by a wide margin of 100,047 votes when he again contested under the PDP. In 2018, he came a distant third before he was brought into the APC by some "Abuja politicians" and subsequently rehabilitated by the party.
He was appointed National Secretary of the party in March 2022 but was abruptly removed in July 2023, allegedly over issues surrounding the management of the APC’s finances.
Since his removal, he has become bitter with anything APC, President Bola Tinubu or former Governor Adegboyega Oyetola, despite all the efforts by Oyetola to tolerate and accommodate him.
Notwithstanding his combative posture towards Oyetola, there have been claims that Oyetola gave him a lucrative contract at the Nigerian Ports Authority, allegedly serving as a financial buffer for him.
Against the advice of national and state leaders of the party, who reportedly felt that security reports concerning his academic and political history did not favour him, he went ahead to contest the last APC governorship primary but was subsequently disqualified.
A petition sent to the APC Elders Forum seeking Omisore’s disqualification, signed by Alex Eluwole from Ife Central and four other persons, may have been the last straw that broke the camel’s back.
In the petition, the group wanted Agba Osun to investigate the truthfulness of grave allegations made against Omisore in Chief Bisi Akande’s book, "My Participations."
In the book, Chief Akande wrote, among other things:
“…when four Peugeot 504 cars were being given to every governor-elect by the military authority as take-off transport needs to the governor before inauguration, Iyiola Omisore was said to have used my name without my authority to collect the four cars from the then Osun State Secretary to the Government, Elder Femi Adelowokan. He sent one to me and appropriated three to himself. I then requested for the other three cars. After a while, he claimed one was snatched by robbers on the way to Cotonou in Benin Republic and that another had a serious accident. So, he never brought the remaining three cars.”
The petitioners said this excerpt raised serious issues requiring verification by the party’s highest moral and disciplinary organ.
They also said Chief Akande alleged in his book that there were controversies surrounding the authenticity of Iyiola Omisore’s academic certificates.
Quoting the book, they said:
“In 1998, I called Iyiola Omisore and his friend, Kunle Alao alias ‘Lele’, to my cousin’s pharmacy store named Adetola Chemists at Igbona area of Osogbo. I made it clear to Iyiola that the general perception of the party leadership was that he was a suspected advanced fee fraudster and a certificate forger. I made references to some of the cases against him in courts, including that of Col. Laoye from Ede.
“I said, however, that no one had told me if he had ever been convicted of any crime. I declared to him that I was prepared to let him be part of the AD governorship ticket but warned him to ensure that he completed the necessary forms with honesty and sincerity. I begged him to include and attach only his genuine educational qualifications and certificates. ‘If it is only Primary Six certificate you have, that is the one you should use,’ I told him.
‘Please, don’t use any certificate that is forged,’ I pleaded.
“He said his certificates were burnt during the Ife-Modakeke crisis.”
The petitioners also wanted the Elders Forum to investigate allegations made by Hon. Rotimi Makinde, a former APC member of the House of Representatives in 2011.
Hon. Rotimi Makinde was said to have publicly alleged in a media interview that Otunba Iyiola Omisore was responsible for the deaths of two of his cousins in Ile-Ife.
According to Makinde:
“I gave the identities of these assassins to the police, including the description of the two vehicles they cruise about town in, which belong to Omisore. Still, no arrest was made. When my residence was attacked two days later, the assassins came from the same place where they held the earlier meeting.”
So, the disqualification of Omisore was desirable to preserve the sacredness of the party's ticket. If he had been handed the ticket, it would have posed legal encumbrances to the party.
There were also allegations before the primaries that he and his key lieutenants were in talks with Governor Adeleke on how to undermine the APC before they would later move to the Accord Party.
That was what eventually happened. His known men moved to the Accord Party.
It was learnt that the APC governorship candidate, AMBO, made several overtures to him, but he declined, allegedly claiming that AMBO was too small to interface with him.
Some national leaders of the party were drafted to appease him and persuade him to work for the party. He reportedly assured them of his commitment to the emergence of the party’s candidate, a development that led the party to mobilise him with logistics funds for the election. But he reportedly directed his supporters to vote for Adeleke.
The recent results from his wards, where APC lost 19 units out of 22 units, are a clear attestation to the allegation that Omisore did not work for the party in the election:
Unit 1: Accord — 261, APC — 92
Unit 2: Accord — 207, APC — 75
Unit 3: Accord — 131, APC — 85
Unit 4: Accord — 166, APC — 94
Unit 5: Accord — 135, APC — 129
Unit 6: Accord — 221, APC — 122
Unit 7: Accord — 60, APC — 29
Unit 8: Accord — 21, APC — 24
Unit 9: Accord — 185, APC — 101
Unit 10: Accord — 297, APC — 90
Unit 11: Accord — 254, APC — 144
Unit 12: Accord — 190, APC — 85
Unit 13: Accord — 123, APC — 70
Unit 14: Accord — 218, APC — 68
Unit 15: Accord — 137, APC — 54
Unit 16: Accord — 166, APC — 90
Unit 17: Accord — 213, APC — 120
Unit 18: Accord — 249, APC — 92
Unit 19: Accord — 188, APC — 108
Unit 20: Accord — 153, APC — 134
Unit 21: Accord — 34, APC — 49
Unit 22: Accord — 37, APC — 47.
Do I need to say more?
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