Osun Decides: Who Succeeds Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola?

The D-day is here. On Saturday, 22nd September, 2018, the people of Osun State will go to the polls to decide who succeeds the incumbent Governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, who is about to complete his tenure in office.

Forty eight candidates are contesting for the post; three of them are seen as having strong chances of making it. They are the candidates of the ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola, the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Senator Iyiola Omisore and Adeoti Moshood of the Africa Democratic Party (ADP).
The candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Ademola Adeleke, though expected to pull a string, will not make any winning impact going by the findings and interactions with people in the state.

Senator Adeleke, according to sources who spoke to P.M.EXPRESS within his home town, Ede that has two local governments; Ede South and Ede North. He may not even pull the kind of weight and votes that won for him the senatorial bye election last year. He has not been seen as a serious contender to the post in this tight contest, coupled with the controversies and court cases surrounding his school certificate.

That leaves the stage for the trio of Oyetola, Omisore and Adeoti.
What will be going for Adeoti, the former Secretary to the State Government of Osun, who was ex-Chairman of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), is that he is coming from Osun West which many believe is their turn to produce the next person who will succeed Aregbesola. This, they said is the unwritten zoning agreement that should be used in picking the governorship candidate. But when the zoning arrangement did not work out, Adeoti dumped All Progressives Congress, APC, and defected to ADP along with his supporters who included high profile politicians in the ruling party.
This calls for concern as Adeoti is seen as a political heavyweight and grassroots politician. The ADP candidate is getting more support from politicians and people of his zone Osun West who believe that it is their turn to produce the governor. This is a factor that must not be underrated and must be taken seriously.

The problem however, is that three candidates are coming from this zone, Adeleke for the PDP, Adeoti  for ADP and Fatai Akinbade of the ADC. This shows that Adeoti will likely not have block votes from this zone no matter his popularity. This will be a minus for him and other candidates from the zone.

Iyiola Omisore is another dangerous factor that must be watched. Omisore, an elder in Osun politics, has numerous followers in the grassroots which cut across the APC and PDP. But his stronghold is only in Ife, the same senatorial district with the incumbent Governor. That is an indication that the zone will be shared equally or the Governor will have an edge over him as the incumbent.

To Oyetola, Aregbesola is rooting for him to continue the good works he had done in the past eight years of his administration. As the Chief of Staff, Oyetola is the unseen driving power behind Aregbesola.  So he shares in the achievements and perceived failures of the outgoing Governor. But the enduring and widespread structures of APC in Osun State is what political pundits say will give Oyetola the edge over other opponents. But at the end of the day, it is the candidate who the majority of the people of Osun State will cast their votes for that will be declared the winner.

“Until the results which are strongly expected to be very close are out, nobody can at this point say who will win” said Mr. Owolabi  Ogundiran, a resident in Osogbo the state capital who confided in P.M.EXPRESS.