By SHEDDY OZOENE
In Roman mythology, Janus is the god with two faces. One looks to the past, the other to the future. Over time, the name has come to describe anyone who presents two sharply contrasting sides. In the recent Osun State governorship election, President Bola Tinubu’s dual posture fitted the description perfectly. Except that unlike Janus who successfully stood in firm defence of Rome against the Sabines, Tinubu threw himself into the battle to stop the Adelekes, and failed spectacularly.
It clearly rankles him that, unlike in Lagos where he reigns unchallenged, Tinubu has been unable to build a lasting political dynasty in his ancestral home. That quiet envy of the Adeleke family of Ede has never been far from the surface and he continues to look at them like a boy whose lollipop was snatched from him. Rauf Aregbesola was expected to hold sway on his behalf, but he has gone rogue. His uncle Gboyega Oyetola has, at best, been lacklustre in stamping his foot on the ground politically. Tinubu saw an opening to bounce back through Bola Oyebamiji, handpicked by Oyetola to reclaim Osun for the All Progressives Congress. And for him. He may have done so reluctantly but he accepted the opportunity all the same.
What was publicly sold as a straightforward campaign to install an APC governor was, at its core, a contest over which dynasty would prevail. Yet even as he mounted a determined effort to wrest the seat from the Adelekes, and deployed the full coercive apparatus available to him, Tinubu projected an image of neutrality to the public. He wanted to be seen as the quintessential statesman, concerned only with due process, electoral integrity, and the enthronement of the will of the people.
Against every calculation and every show of federal muscle, however, Governor Ademola Adeleke of the Accord Party prevailed. He walked away with victory on Saturday, 15 August 2026, polling 511,067 votes to Bola Oyebamiji’s 444,815 – a clear margin of 66,252 votes. This was no ordinary loss; it happened in President Tinubu’s ancestral backyard, the place many still regard as his original homestead. And it happened after the full weight of the federal government had been rolled out like an occupation force.
The road to that message was thick with intrigue. Adeleke had once signalled openness to joining the APC, acknowledging the president’s roots in the state. Tinubu appeared to play along, until he was convinced that Oyetola, who had blocked that move, still possessed the political muscle to reclaim the seat. So, while he approved the onslaught on Osun, he however maintained a public posture of lofty detachment. Statements issued on his behalf spoke of respecting the people’s will. That is statesmanlike, isn’t it?
On the ground, however, the picture was very different: the President approved the deployment of mind-boggling number of service men and women. Reports put police deployment in the region of 23,000 officers, with some accounts noting as many as 30 commissioners of police were drafted in for a single-day election in a state with fewer than two million registered voters. Soldiers, civil defence personnel and road safety officials joined the throng.
As many as 16 governors from other states prioritised the Osun contest, some publicly boasting about sweeping Adeleke aside. Up to 55 members of the National Assembly, led by Senate President Godswill Akpabio, journeyed to Osogbo to show the party colours and do the President’s bidding. It all made the entire exercise look less like an election and more like an occupation force, complete with intimidating convoys of every shade and description.
Roughly two weeks before polling day, the EFCC had frozen a key Osun state government account. The stated reason was the preservation of public funds so that an incoming administration would not inherit an empty treasury, an explanation that assumed the result in advance. Imagine the explanation! EFCC was already acting in favour of an ‘incoming administration’. The timing was so obvious that even Tinubu felt embarrassed, and was forced to intervene and order the supposedly independent anti-graft body to reverse course.
The heavy security presence that was meant to guarantee peace instead, amplified a climate of fear. Ordinary people were made to feel that backing a particular candidate carried a price. Multiple outlets documented dozens of election-related incidents and a grim tally of over 15 deaths in the weeks before and during the poll. The people who supported the Accord Party and its candidate spoke of intimidation, injury and worse.
In the end the votes told a different story. The Osun people held their ground, against the odds. They refused to be cowed by Oyetola, the former governor whose political fortunes have twice collided with Adeleke’s and twice come off second best. The joke was on him but the larger joke is on President Tinubu who tried to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds – projecting lofty neutrality while the machinery under his watch applied maximum pressure. So, when the numbers began to make the outcome clear, he buckled like some coward; he reached for the telephone and congratulated Adeleke. That was even before the formal declaration of the election results. It was a deft recovery, the kind of quick footwork that has long defined Tinubu’s political survival. But it could not erase the underlying reality: the federal might was deployed, the pressure was applied, and the people still said no.
In his reaction to the outcome, Nyesom Wike, the garrulous Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, claimed that if the government had truly wanted victory, it would have brought “the federal might” to bear. That is laughable. After all the coercive apparatus and an estimated N60 billiin Naira budget was expended, according to Chief Deji Adeleke, what else exactly, was left for Tinubu to apply? Would he have ordered Air Force jets into the battle?
The people of Osun have spoken. They rejected the attempt to decide their future from Abuja. They rejected the occupation-style deployment and the transparent assumption of victory before a single ballot was cast. In doing so, they reminded the country of a simple truth: no amount of federal muscle can permanently substitute for the consent of the governed. Tinubu tried to wear both faces of Janus—the detached statesman and the determined power player. And in defeat, he projected the image of indifference and even tried to cruise with the dancing Adeleke. It was a poor attempt and nobody was deceived because the result on 15 August was emphatic: the puppet, the puppeteer and the grandmaster all lost.
Sheddy Ozoene, Editor-In-Chief of People&Politics, is Vice President of the Nigerian Guild of Editors.
