OSUN 2026: A paragraph-by-paragraph response to Omowaiye hero worship piece on Mr. Oyetola

By Oloye Olaitan Adedigba

Yes, Gboyega Oyetola is a hero to Remi Omowaiye and his IleriOluwa Caucus. That is their right. But political loyalty should not prevent honest assessment, especially when the facts are staring us in the face.

“How is Oyetola the loser when his name was not even on the ballot?”

Remi Omowaiye should kindly explain why political responsibility suddenly ends where the ballot paper begins. Oyetola may not have been the candidate in 2026, but he was the immediate past governor and the leader of the APC in Osun.

If he deserves all the credit for the party’s achievements, appointments, structures and electoral strength that Remi listed, then he cannot simultaneously be absolved of responsibility whenever the party suffers an electoral defeat. You cannot claim leadership when things go right and disclaim leadership when things go wrong.

On the claim that Oyetola became exceptional because he did not borrow money, Remi should kindly tell us how much Chief Bisi Akande borrowed as governor of Osun State. If avoiding borrowing is the ultimate standard for determining who was the greatest governor Osun has ever produced, then the argument must be applied consistently.

Remi’s claim that Oyetola was asked to stay away from the campaign is very ridiculous and perhaps one of the most revealing parts of the entire piece.

What kind of political hero is asked to stay away from the campaign of the candidate he supposedly helped produce? If a leader is considered such an asset to his party, why would the party need him to remain away from its campaign frontlines in order to “defuse tensions” (sic)?

That is not necessarily evidence of heroism. It can reasonably be interpreted as an admission that his active involvement had become politically complicated or potentially counterproductive. A leader should be able to campaign for his party without becoming a liability to its electoral prospects.

If the APC had done better in the same Ife and Osogbo that are the subjects of Remi’s vituperation, with the deficit brought from Osun West, where the APC candidate was chosen, there is still no pathway to victory.

Or should we say the APC leaders in Ife and Osogbo are still the reason the candidate also performed abysmally in the candidate’s senatorial district?

Remi’s mockery of Iyiola Omisore for not becoming governor is unnecessary and intellectually lazy. Not everyone who contests an election will become governor. Politics is full of accomplished people who never attained the highest office they sought.

A former deputy governor, a senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and former National Secretary of a ruling political party is already a remarkable political career that only a few Nigerians will ever achieve.

Gboyega Oyetola lost the 2022 governorship election as an incumbent governor. In the 2023 general elections under Oyetola’s leadership, the APC also suffered significant defeats across Osun, including the loss of all three senatorial seats, nine House of Representatives seats and twenty-five out of twenty-six House of Assembly seats.

If Remi wants to credit Oyetola personally for the party’s strength, then intellectual honesty demands that his leadership record should also be examined when the party performs badly. You cannot build a political résumé out of victories belonging to an entire party and then remove your name whenever defeat arrives.

The 2026 election presents another uncomfortable question. If Oyetola was influential enough to deserve credit for the APC’s political achievements, how much responsibility should he bear for the party’s defeat? This becomes even more relevant if the claim is that he played a decisive role in determining the emergence of the party’s candidate.

A leader cannot simultaneously be described as the ultimate builder of the party and an innocent bystander whenever the structure he supposedly built collapses at the ballot box. The party lost. The candidate lost. The leadership must reflect.

The APC’s 444,000-plus votes are indeed significant and deserve recognition. But attributing every APC vote to Oyetola is another form of political exaggeration. Those votes belong to APC members, supporters, candidates, local leaders, ward structures, campaigners and ordinary voters across Osun State.

Political parties are not private properties. If 444,000 votes prove Oyetola’s political strength, what does the defeat itself say about that strength? The better question is not simply how many votes the APC got, but why a party with such a supposedly formidable structure could not convert that support into victory.

If the closest people around a leader are the ones constantly cheering him on when the evidence suggests that something is going wrong, then there should be room for sober reflection. Sometimes, the greatest disservice loyalists can do to a leader is to refuse to tell him the truth.

Perhaps it is time to examine the people around you, the decisions you have made and the direction in which they are taking you.

The most important lesson from 2026 is therefore not whether Oyetola is a “hero” or a “loser.” It is whether the APC is willing to tell itself the truth. The bitter truth is that Oyetola’s leadership of the APC in Osun has only brought a series of electoral failures, and there is a need for a rethink of the leadership and structure of the APC in Osun if the party is to bounce back to the victory lane.

Adedigba, Writes from New Jersey, USA