February 23, (THEWILL) – The anxiety and tension that followed the conduct of Saturday’s local government polls in Osun State has heightened the expectations of the result about to be announced any time from today, Sunday, February 23, 2024.
In open defiance of the warning by the Federal Government and the Nigeria Police Force’s, the state government enabled the Osun State Independent Electoral Commission, OSSIEC, to go ahead with the poll despite additional pressure from the police which locked up the Commission’s office and turned back journalists who went there to collect accreditation tags.
The Labour Party and Allied Peoples Movement in the state announced their withdrawal from the poll due to lack of adequate security arrangement by the Commission for the peaceful conduct of the election.
Like the ongoing House of Assembly leadership crisis in Lagos State and the prolonged supremacy battle between Governor Siminalayi Fubara and Federal Capital Territory Minister, Nyesom Wike, for the control of political structures in Rivers State, the political conflict in Osun State between the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and the main opposition All Progressives Congress, APC, can be linked to next year’s election.
In Osun, the tenure of the elected Chairmen expires in November 2025, barely seven months to the governorship polls coming up in July 2026.
“I wonder where they (OSSIEC) will tell you they conducted the election from because the police sealed their office.” Spokesperson of the opposition All Progressives Congress, APC, Kola Olabisi, told THEWILL on Saturday. “Anyway, there are no vacancies in the 30 local government areas of the State. Five days ago, we wrote a letter to the OSSIEC saying we are not taking part in the poll because the Appeal Court in Akure jurisdiction had restored the elected Chairmen to their offices. If a king does not die, there is no vacancy in his throne. Besides, the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi had advised the state government to obey the Appeal Court ruling and shelve the polls.”
Indeed, the AGF, Fagbemi, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and the Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, made legal and security representations to the government against holding the poll. Yet the state government went ahead with the election.
According to the Nigeria Police Force, which urged the government to suspend the planned elections, there was convincing intelligence analyses that interested groups had mobilised to “unleash unrest, disrupt public peace and undermine the democratic process.”
Force Public Relations Officer, ACP Olumuyiwa Adejobi, said at the weekend, “The Nigeria Police Force has received credible intelligence indicating a high likelihood of violence and significant security threats, should the planned local government elections proceed in Osun State. These reports sourced through joint intelligence gathering reveal that various groups, including political elements and other interested parties, are mobilising to instigate unrest, disrupt public peace and undermine the democratic order.”
The NPF, ACP Adejobi said, strongly advised the Osun State Government to suspend the planned elections in the interest of public safety and national stability.
AGF Fagbemi, SAN, on his part warned the state government to obey the Court of Appeal ruling, which set aside an earlier Federal High Court judgment that nullified the previous local government elections conducted under ex-Governor Adegboyega Oyetola.
Fagbemi, therefore called on the governor to suspend the planned LG elections. “It will also amount to an egregious breach of the Constitution, which Governor Adeleke has sworn to uphold,” the country’s chief law officer said.
Unmoved by the appeals, Governor Ademola Adeleke, insisted that the election would hold as planned. “As for me and my people, we stand by the rule of law, not illegal self-help.”
The state government maintains that the Appeal Court judgement did not give any consequential order and therefore validated the Federal High Court judgement, which nullified the 2022 LGA poll.
Shortly before the conduct of the poll, Justice Adeyinka Aderibigbe of the state High Court in Ilesa on Friday gave an order directing the government to go ahead with the poll. The order was sequel to a suit brought before the court by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, one of the parties participating in the election.
He directed all security agencies and vigilante groups to maintain peace before, during and after the election.
UNDERCURRENTS IN OSUN
Investigation shows that the ongoing fight between the PDP and APC in Osun State is about the 2026 Governorship Election in Osun and the 2027 General Election. Currently, the fortunes of the opposition APC are at their lowest ebb. During the 2023 general poll, the party lost all National Assembly seats, three senatorial and nine House of Representatives seats, and managed to win one out of 26 seats in State House of Assembly.
After his defeat in the 2022 governorship poll, Oyetola hurriedly conducted a local government poll before his successor Adeleke was sworn into office, a strategic attempt to retain power at the grassroots. This led to a series of litigations that has now become a subject of multiple interpretations until, perhaps, the Supreme Court intervenes through an originating suit and restates the matter.
Moreover, the exit of a former governor of the state, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, from the party alongside his group, Omoluabi Progressives in January has complicated matters for the APC. Given its grassroots presence, the group’s exit from the APC has changed the political dynamics in the state ahead of the 2026 governorship poll and by extension, the importance of the state in the political calculations for 2027.
It is not clear if Oyetola, who is the current Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, will run for a second term in the 2026 governorship poll, but his deep involvement in the politics of the state is due to his position as the leader of the APC there.
“I cannot talk about the politics of the 2026 governorship election or that of 2027. The issue at stake for us now is the local government poll, which the Appeal Court ruling has restored to our party.” Olabisi said.
Probably involved with the conduct of the LG poll, media aides to the governor and PDP party chieftains could not be reached for comments.
However, Adeboro Adamson, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, who commented on developments in the state at the weekend, said the State High Court ruling that ordered the conduct of the poll has opened another legal issue that would certainly be challenged in the days ahead. According to him, the February 10 Appeal Court ruling is valid until it is vacated.
Friday’s State High Court ruling in Ilesa directing OSIEC to conduct the poll “is a pre-election matter that will be challenged in the coming days,” he said.
“Governors are desperate to control local government councils to maintain their grip on their states. It is the trend in many states. They brook no opposition. Look at Anambra State, for example. At a time in the state, the Young Progressive Party, YPP, had a Senator, a House of Representatives member and three members in the State House of Assembly. Yet in a local government election, it won no seat in the local government. How possible is that?”
LAGOS AND RIVERS
Similarly, unfolding events in Lagos State have all the characteristics of the 2027 general election at the governorship and presidential levels. THEWILL checks show that the ongoing leadership crisis in the State House of Assembly following the stiff resistance of a majority of the members against attempts by the impeached Speaker, Mudashiru Obasa to reclaim his seat has not only sharply divided groups and interests in the state but also created a logjam that is testing the patience of many stakeholders.
A seeming battle line is being drawn between the two major groups within the APC, which are angling for political dominance in the state, the Mandate Group is mainly composed of President Bola Tinubu’s loyalists, including Obasa and Justice Forum, filled by members loyal to former Minister of Interior, Aregbesola.
On the surface, many members from both groups maintain a united front against Obasa for what many say was his slight on Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu and members of the influential Governor Advisory Council, GAC, on many occasions as well as his governorship ambition.
Deep down, however, the embattled Speaker currently enjoys some support even from members of the GAC, drawn from both groups, including those who have publicly declared that he has the right to challenge his removal in a manner they considered not fitting.
A presidential aide who confided in THEWILL said the attempts to link Obasa’s fight for reinstatement because of presidential support is misplaced, though he agrees that the politics of 2027 is the background to the intrigues that are playing out.
The aide said, “The only problem as far as the president is concerned is that he was not carried along about the whole thing, although Obasa was aware of what was coming. Why did he hide the mace before he travelled?”
He said the stakeholders are currently pleading with President Tinubu to allow Mojisola Meranda to remain speaker and allow Obasa to go. After all, he said, all members of the Assembly were elected as representatives of their constituencies and none was elected a Speaker, whose office is the result of an internal process agreed upon by the lawmakers.
There is a proposal, he disclosed, that is being considered to give the former speaker ‘a soft landing’, whereby If he chooses to resign from the Assembly, a federal appointment would be given to him while no petition against him should be forwarded to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.
The stakeholders are said to have pledged their loyalty to the President while demanding that Obasa be allowed to go. They are said to have argued against having a divided house ahead of the 2027 poll, recalling a similar crisis that nearly spelt doom for the party during the era of a particularly aggrieved governor whose public approval rating was so high that his threat to defect amid differences and contest for a second term on another platform had to be resolved through some concessions and commitments. Nonetheless, a consensus is yet to be reached on the ex-Speaker.
Contacted for his reaction to the development, a top government official in Lagos told THEWILL that though the matter is looking complicated because of several interests involved, there is a structure in place to eventually resolve all the issues.
“It is all about elections, who occupies what office and when. For now, things are too complex. You have the President’s interests. You have the governor’s interest, the legislator’s interest, the party’s interest and the GAC interest. It is so complicated now that you have to be careful what you say so as not to be caught in the ongoing web of intrigues. But I can assure you that they have a machinery in place to resolve all the issues,” the official said anonymously.
In Rivers State, the ongoing supremacy battle for control of political structures between Governor Siminalayi Fubara and Federal Capital Territory Minister, Nyesom Wike, reverberated on Friday when the PDP suspended the holding of the South-South zonal congress of the party in Calabar, Cross River State, while it approved those slated to hold in the North-West and South-East on Saturday, February 21, 2024. Organiser of the congress, Chief Dan Orbih is currently on suspension as National Vice Chairman, South-South. He is also a prominent member of the Wike camp.
However, conflicting court judgements at the weekend gave another twist to the party’s directive. While the presiding judge of the Rivers State High Court, Justice G.V Obomamu, issued an interim order restraining Chief Orbih from conducting the zonal congress and adjourned to February 28 for hearing on the Motion on Notice, Justice Omotoso of the Federal High Court, Abuja, on the same day refused to grant an ex parte order to stop the zonal congress from holding in Calabar. He asked all parties to maintain the status quo as of February 20, 2025, while adjourning to March 4, 2025, for hearing of the pending motion on notice. Contacted, the National Publicity Secretary of the Party, Debo Ologunagba, declined calls to his phone.
Meanwhile, the seven-member Rivers State House of Assembly led by Rt. Hon. Victor Oko-Jumbo, started an oversight tour of the 23 local government areas in the state at the weekend unchallenged. Oko-Jumbo said they have the mandate to make the state work for the good of the people and the tour was an indication that governance had fully returned in the state.
WAY FORWARD
Commenting on the ongoing political crisis in Lagos, Osun and Rivers, National Chairman of the Inter-Party Advisory Council of Nigeria, Alhali Yusuf Dantalle, told THEWILL that the challenge facing Nigerian political leaders is how to separate politics from governance. They are hardly settled into office after being sworn-in, then they begin to think of the next election instead of concentrating on governance.
“Until we stop seeing politics as business transactions, until we concentrate more on delivering good governance to the people, I am afraid, these will remain as they are. Today, 90 per cent of those of us seeking political office do not know why we are going there. Many of us go into political offices because of the thinking that it is our turn to be leaders. Unfortunately, we have a population that is unenlightened, and this has allowed the elite to weaponise poverty for their selfish interests. That is why at the IPAC, we continue to call for the politics of service,” he said.
He warned that with the era of social media, the people may wake up one day and challenge the status quo. “The other day we had ENDSars and then the protest against hunger. We pray that we do not end up with an uprising. We need to make our country work for our people. You saw how former Head of State, Ibrahim Babangida during the week admitted to some error in governance during his time. I hope we will learn from him and know that decisions must be taken with firmness for the good of the people.”
Amos Esele is the Acting Editor of THEWILL Newspaper. He has over two decades of experience on the job.
