From Rejecting the APC to Campaigning for President Tinubu: The Curious Politics of a Governor’s Change of Heart
There are political ironies, there are political somersaults, and then there is the Osun Paradox: a governor who has just ridden to electoral victory on the crest of popular resistance to the ruling party and its government suddenly makes himself available to help the same government retain power at a higher level.
If Nigerian politics were a circus, this would be the moment the tightrope walker abandons the rope, joins the orchestra and begins conducting the music for the man who paid for the tent.
Welcome to the theatre of the absurd.
Governor Ademola Adeleke’s re-election in Osun State was an outcome interpreted by many of his supporters and observers around the country as a popular rejection of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the policies associated with the Tinubu administration, and the hardships they have caused across Nigeria.
The electorate had an opportunity to speak, and, by their votes, they delivered a clear message. They did so with sorrow, tears and blood. Several reportedly died. Others were wounded. There were viral videos of ordinary Osun citizens escorting voting results on their bicycles, motorcycles and mini buses. When the results were announced and their favorite candidate won, there was jubilation across the land.
Then came the intriguing plot twist: Adeleke, the anointed son, flew to Abuja, thanked the President profusely for “allowing a free and fair election” in his state, and accepted an appointment to President Bola Tinubu’s re-election Campaign Council ahead of the January 2027 presidential poll.
The political arithmetic became more interesting. Adekeke suddenly forgot that for months Tinubu’s Federal Government withheld funds due to his state in what observers saw as an apparent attempt to cripple his government, strangle his re-election bid financially, and allow the APC an easy ride back to power in his domain.
In that period, Osun local governments, public servants and development projects suffered terribly. Governor Adekeke wept and wailed. The president looked the other way. Then, just a few days to the election, Mr President released the funds, hoping apparently that the damage had been done.
Part of the people’s angst against Tinubu and the APC Federal Administration in the off-cycle Governorship election came from this. The people decided to punish their traducers.
The governor who benefited from this wave of popular resistance is now expected to help mobilise that same electorate for the political establishment against which the resistance was directed.
The messenger of yesterday’s rejection has volunteered to become the courier of tomorrow’s endorsement.
What changed? The people? The party? The government? Or merely the political calculations of the man who claims to represent them?
Perhaps we should not be too hasty. Political cooperation across party lines is not inherently immoral. A governor may engage the President in the interest of his state, regardless of their partisan and other differences. Indeed, a responsible governor should maintain functional relations with the Federal Government.
But there is a difference between cooperating with a President to ensure that the work of governance is done, and joining the President’s electoral machinery to help secure another term in office—especially when the first term is widely adjudged to be a disaster.
One is governance. The other is political prostitution. And when the latter appears to contradict the mandate on which one’s own political fortune depends, reasonable questions become unavoidable.
Did Osun elect a governor, or did it unknowingly appoint a presidential campaign manager?
THE SON OF THE SOIL
The plot thickens with the governor’s reported description of President Tinubu as a “son of the soil.”
For years, a persistent but unofficial narrative has circulated in public discussions that Tinubu is a native of Iragbiji in Osun State. The President has not publicly acknowledged this, and claims to be from the famous Tinubu family of Lagos State. So it remains one of the many mysteries surrounding his identity, education, career and public record.
Yet Adeleke’s description of the President as a son of the soil raises an interesting question. Is the governor appealing to a shared ancestral connection to persuade the people of Osun to support Tinubu in the presidential election?
If so, we have moved from the politics of performance to the politics of pedigree. The argument appears simple enough: Tinubu is one of us; therefore, we should support him.
But why should ancestral affinity determine a presidential vote? And why should it outweigh the performance of the government seeking another mandate?
Let us take the argument a little further. Suppose your son conducts himself in a manner you find unacceptable. He squanders resources, neglects his responsibilities and makes life difficult for everyone in the family. Would you recommend him to your neighbours and friends as the ideal person to manage their affairs simply because he is your son?
Would you tell your neighbours to overlook his shortcomings because he shares your surname and comes from your loins?
Or would you advise them to judge him by his conduct, his competence and his record? That is the moral dilemma facing the people of Osun today.
The analogy is not intended to equate the presidency with a family household. Its point is simpler: familiarity and kinship may explain affection, but they do not establish competence. Ancestry may inspire solidarity, but it cannot substitute for accountability.
If Tinubu’s government has performed well, let its achievements make the case for his re-election. If it has performed poorly, an alleged ancestral connection to Osun should not become an exemption from scrutiny. Indeed, it places a burden on Osun to repudiate him. A decent man does not feed his friends and guests with food that unsettles his own stomach.
A presidential election is not a family reunion. The ballot paper is not a genealogical register.
And if the President’s alleged connection to Iragbiji is sufficiently important to be invoked as a reason for electoral support, one might reasonably ask why the President himself has not publicly acknowledged it.
There is, of course, no obligation on any politician to validate every rumour about his ancestry. But neither should an unverified claim become the foundation of a political argument intended to influence millions of votes. And lives.
Osun deserves a better reason to support a presidential candidate than the possibility that he shares its soil.
THE GOVERNOR’S VOTE IS NOT THE PEOPLE’S VOTE
Here lies the central issue.
A governor possesses political influence, but he does not own the votes of his people. He may command a party structure, enjoy considerable popularity and possess the machinery of government. None of these grants him proprietary rights over the conscience of an individual voter.
The democratic mandate is not a blank cheque transferable at the governor’s discretion.
When citizens vote for a candidate, they make their own calculations. They may be expressing approval of his record, rejecting his opponent, protesting against economic hardship or defending their political identity. Their motivations may be complicated, contradictory or even irrational. But the votes remain theirs.
Suppose, for argument’s sake, that Osun voters returned Adeleke to office partly because they wanted to reject the APC and register their displeasure with the Federal Government. What moral authority does the governor possess to convert that electoral protest into an endorsement of the very political establishment the voters wished to punish?
He may persuade them. He may campaign for Tinubu. He may even change his own political preferences.
But he cannot legitimately assume that his constituents must change theirs merely because he has changed his political company.
Democracy does not operate on the principle that the people must follow their leaders wherever the political winds blow. It is supposed to work the other way round: leaders are accountable to the people whose votes put them in office. Otherwise, elections become elaborate rituals for transferring public loyalty into private political currency.
A MATTER OF CHARACTER
The question of character is unavoidable, although it deserves a little intellectual honesty.
Accepting an appointment in a presidential election council does not, by itself, prove that a governor has betrayed his people. Nor does cross-party cooperation automatically amount to political opportunism. Motives matter, and the full circumstances of any arrangement should be examined before a definitive judgment is passed.
Yet public leadership is not judged by intentions alone. It is also judged by consistency, transparency and the willingness to explain decisions that appear to contradict one’s political commitments.
If Adeleke’s re-election represented a popular repudiation of the APC’s performance in Osun, how does his participation in Tinubu’s electoral project reconcile with that message?
Has the President’s performance improved since the Osun election? Have the economic pressures troubling Nigerian households suddenly disappeared? Has the Federal Government addressed the grievances that made the APC an unattractive choice to voters in Osun?
If there is a public-interest justification for this new alignment, let it be articulated. If the objective is to secure federal cooperation for Osun, let the terms and expected benefits be made clear. If there has been a genuine reassessment of the President’s performance, let the governor explain what has changed.
The public deserves to know.
The distance between political pragmatism and political opportunism is often measured by the benefits to the public, the transparency of the bargain and the consistency of the politician’s conduct.
Ethnicity is not a performance certificate. Regional identity is not an economic recovery programme. And cultural affinity cannot automatically erase the difference between what a government promises and what it delivers.
A voter struggling with food prices, transport costs, school fees, electricity bills and shrinking purchasing power is entitled to be treated with more dignity.
Is the electorate being invited to practise political independence only when it suits the governor?
There is something particularly condescending about assuming that voters can be herded between political enclosures, their loyalties determined by the latest instructions from the ranch.
Osun voters are citizens, not political luggage. They may support Tinubu despite their governor’s previous campaign rhetoric. They may reject Tinubu despite his new appointment. They may vote for another candidate altogether.The point is not which choice they make. It is that the choice belongs to them.
ENTER DAVIDO: FAMILY TIES
And then there is Davido.The music superstar, who supported his uncle during the Osun re-election campaign, has reportedly made it clear that he is not bound by his uncle’s political choices.That intervention adds an entertaining twist to an already intriguing drama.
In Nigerian politics, family ties are often presented as political assets. A famous nephew can bring celebrity glamour, youthful enthusiasm, media attention and an army of admirers to a campaign. His presence can help transform an ordinary political rally into a cultural spectacle.
But apparently, even a famous nephew can distinguish between supporting a relative in one election and surrendering his political judgment for every subsequent contest.
The distinction is important.
If a nephew who campaigned for his uncle can reserve the right to disagree with him, why should an ordinary Osun voter be expected to do otherwise?
Perhaps the governor’s family is about to offer a practical lesson in democratic pluralism: relatives may share a surname without sharing a ballot.
THE POLITICAL MARKETPLACE
Of course, Nigerian politics has never been particularly troubled by ideological consistency. In this marketplace, principles are often advertised at retail prices but negotiated wholesale.The problem is not that politicians change their minds. Changing one’s mind in response to new evidence is a sign of intellectual maturity.
But if a politician tells the people that one party’s record warrants rejection, then joins the machinery seeking to return that party to power, the burden of explanation rests on him.
The danger for Governor Adeleke is therefore not simply that some voters may refuse to follow his new political direction. It is that they may begin to reconsider the meaning of the mandate they gave him.
In the space of a few weeks, Osun State has morphed from a symbol of people’s power to a center of moral dilemma. Come January 2027, Osun voters will have their opportunity to settle the matter. They will decide whether to offer to the rest of Nigeria a bitter chalice they vehemently refused to drink themselves. The world is watching. The tape is rolling.
**Victor Anazonwu is on the editorial board of The Renaissance Online Magazine
