In the 2018 election, Oyetola defeated Adeleke with less than 500 votes. So, this is a rematch that is ongoing.
By Ishaya Ibrahim, News Editor
There are 15 candidates jostling for the governorship of Osun State. Three are more prominent – the All Progressives Congress (APC) Gboyega Oyetola who is seeking re-election, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Ademola Adeleke and the Labour Party Yusuf Lasun.
In the estimation of many analysts, the contest would be a two horse race between Oyetola and Adeleke. The two candidates are familiar foes. In the 2018 election, Oyetola defeated Adeleke with less than 500 votes. So, this is a rematch that is ongoing.
Osun has a total of 30 local governments, 332 registration areas and 3,763 polling units. The state has 1, 955,657 registered voters and 1,479,595 of them have already collected their Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs).
The two leading aspirants
Politically, Oyetola has a rich profile. He started as a member of the Alliance for Democracy (AD), and was in the party through its metamorphosis to Action Congress (AC), Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and now the All Progressives Congress (APC).
In July 2018, he contested with the then House of Representatives deputy speaker Yusuf Lasun (who is now the Labour Party candidate), and Speaker of the Osun House of Assembly, Nojeem Salaam, among others for the APC ticket. He won the ticket and went ahead to win the main election.
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For Adeleke, he comes from an influential family in Ede with massive political structures built by his father, the Second Republic Senator, Ayoola Adeleke. The structure was held together by his son, Isiaka Adeleke, also a former senator until his death in 2017. Ademola Adeleke continued in that stead.
In the 2018 Osun governorship election, Ademola Adeleke won at the first ballot, but INEC declared it inconclusive because the margin of victory was less than the number of votes in the areas where election could not take place. It took the combination of the then Social Democratic Party candidate, Iyiola Omisore, who is now the APC National Secretary, to defeat Ademola Adeleke in the rerun election with less than 500 votes.