Barring intervention from the All Progressives Congress (APC) National Working Committee (NWC), the ambition of its former national secretary, Iyiola Omisore to contest the 2026 governorship election in Osun state may have hit the rocks.
By Emma Ogbuehi
Barring intervention from the All Progressives Congress (APC) National Working Committee (NWC), the ambition of its former national secretary, Iyiola Omisore to contest the 2026 governorship election in Osun state may have hit the rocks. If that happens, Omisore’s ambition to govern Osun which had been hardly disguised since the commencement of the present democratic order in 1999, would have been abruptly terminated again.
Omisore, former deputy governor of the state and another erstwhile deputy governor, Benedict Olugboyega Alabi; as well as four other governorship aspirants were disqualified from participating in its December 13, 2025, primary election in Osun State.
Others affected by the disqualification are Dotun Babayemi, Akin Ogunbiyi, Senator Babajide Omoworare, Kunle Adegoke (SAN) and Babatunde Haketer Oralusi.
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Their uncertain fate followed a report submitted on Friday to the party’s organisation department in which a seven-member screening committee chaired by Barrister Obinna Uzor announced that only two aspirants—Hon. Mulikat Adeola Jimoh and Asiwaju Munirudeen Bola Oyebamiji—met all requirements to contest the primary.
According to the committee, both aspirants “fulfilled regulatory conditions as stipulated by the party’s guidelines, the Constitution and the Electoral Act”, thereby earning full clearance.
However, the panel referred the six disqualified aspirants to the National Working Committee (NWC) for a final review and possible clearance before the governorship primary.
The committee revealed in its six-page report, signed by all members, that it acted on a petition submitted by the Osun APC Renewal Group.
The petition had urged the disqualification of two aspirants on the grounds that they failed to meet the mandatory nominator requirements set by the APC Constitution and guidelines.
The panel stated that “upon careful review, the Committee found the issues raised in the petition to be weighty, substantial and germane to the integrity of the screening process.” It added that, in the interest of fairness and uniform application of the rules, the same standards were applied to all nine aspirants.
“Accordingly, the Committee extended the same scrutiny to all nine aspirants, ensuring that every sponsor (nominator) of an aspirant was assessed on the basis of compliance with Articles 9.3(i) and 31.2(ii) of the APC Constitution and Paragraph 6(c) of the Guidelines,” the report noted, saying this was to preserve a level playing field and uphold internal party democracy.
At the end of the two-day exercise, the committee confirmed that only Jimoh and Oyebamiji “satisfactorily met all constitutional and guideline requirements of the APC, including proper nomination by the requisite number of fully registered, financially up-to-date party members from each Local Government Area.”
It observed that Senators Omisore and Omoworare and Babayemi, Ogunbiyi, Alabi, Adegoke and Oralusi failed to meet the mandatory condition of being nominated by at least five financially compliant members from each local government, as required under Articles 9.3(i) and 31.2(ii) of the APC Constitution and Paragraph 6(c) of the 2025 Governorship Primary Guidelines.
Meanwhile, the Screening Appeal Committee chaired by Senator Tola Odebiyi is scheduled to sit on Saturday in Abuja to hear petitions from the seven disqualified aspirants and any other aggrieved party stakeholders.
Omisore is not new in Osun politics and governorship aspiration. At the run-up to the current civilian dispensation in 1998, he had angled for the position on the platform of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) but was prevailed on to run as deputy to the elderly Bisi Akande. Their first term had hardly run out when he fell out with Akande and the ensuing crisis saw him leaving AD. Later, he ran for governorship on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in the 9 August 2014 guber election and lost to Rauf Aregbesola, then the governor, under APC.
Omisore, again, contested for the governorship seat on the platform of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the 2018 Osun State gubernatorial election where he came third behind Senator Ademola Adeleke of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the eventual winner, Gboyega Oyetola of the All Progressives Congress (APC). It was largely believed that Omisore’s withdrawal from the ballot and support for Oyetola, in a supplementary poll was what gave Oyetola a controversial edge over Adeleke. In compensating him for the concession, Omisore was made the national secretary of the APC. Even as the chief scribe of the ruling party, he had his eyes on the Osun governorship, a desire that presently seems to be in jeopardy unless the NWC offers him a breather.
