By Sam Agogo
The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Osun State has been living with fractures for years, but by August 2026 those cracks had widened into gaping fault lines.
What should have been a straightforward campaign season turned into a crisis of loyalty, defections, and bitter grievances.
The party’s internal wars became so loud that the Presidency itself was forced to intervene.Five days before the governorship election, seventy-six APC leaders from Osun were summoned to Abuja for a late-night meeting with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. But this invitation did not emerge in a vacuum. It followed a call from the National Security Adviser (NSA), who alerted the Presidency that the level of discontent within Osun APC had reached a boiling point. The NSA’s message was not about violence—it was about politics. He warned that the grievances of Osun leaders were so deep that they threatened to unravel the party’s campaign machinery in the state.The delegation that arrived at Aso Rock was formidable. Among them were Olubunmi Ete, former Speaker of the House of Representatives; Mojeed Alabi, Adejare Bello, and Wale Afolabi, all former Speakers of the Osun State House of Assembly; senior chieftains like Alhaji Shuaib Oyedokun, Poju Odusola, and Bode Olanipekun; Babajide Omoworare, former presidential aide; and APC National Secretary Ajibola Basiru, who coordinated the meeting. These were not fringe actors. They were men who had carried the party’s banner for years, who had commanded constituencies and shaped legislation. Their grievance was simple: exclusion.For three years, federal appointments and patronage from Osun had flowed almost exclusively through former governor and current Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Adegboyega Oyetola, and his IleriOluwa faction. Others were left out, humiliated before their supporters, and stripped of relevance. At the Villa, the seventy-six leaders demanded recognition. They wanted a share of federal appointments, contracts, and influence. They wanted proof that the APC was not merely Oyetola’s personal empire. Some went further, warning that they did not trust Bola Oyebamiji—the APC’s governorship candidate and Oyetola’s former commissioner—to behave any differently if elected. Tinubu’s assurances—that “there would be room for everyone at the federal level if state positions ran out”—were polite but hollow. They did not resolve the grievances; they merely postponed the reckoning.Beyond the seventy-six leaders who sought inclusion, there were others whose wounds ran deeper—those who had been outright discarded by the party. In December 2025, the APC screening committee disqualified seven of nine governorship aspirants ahead of the primary. The official reason was failure to provide proof of sponsorship from registered party members across the required local government areas. But to many, it looked like a deliberate purge designed to clear the field for Oyetola’s preferred candidate. Among those disqualified were Senator Iyiola Omisore, former deputy governor and immediate past APC National Secretary; Babajide Omoworare; Benedict Alabi; Akin Ogunbiyi; Dotun Babayemi; Babatunde Oralusi; and Adegoke Rasheed. The candidate who emerged was Bola Oyebamiji, a loyalist of Oyetola.Omisore, in particular, felt betrayed. He accused party insiders of orchestrating a hatchet job to favor Oyetola’s camp. He challenged his disqualification in court but later withdrew the suit after interventions from senior party leaders. The withdrawal did not heal the wound. Omisore’s loyalty was gone. Roughly twenty of his followers defected to Governor Ademola Adeleke’s Accord Party, including two former commissioners under Oyetola’s administration—Folorunsho Bamisayemi and Yemi Lawal. This defection added to an older wave. In November 2024, thirty-two APC leaders across all thirty local government areas, led by Hon. Oluomo Owolabi, defected to the PDP, citing a survey that found 45 percent of Oyetola’s faction had already migrated to the opposition.The numbers tell the story: seventy-six leaders summoned to Abuja for reassurance; twenty Omisore loyalists defected to Accord; thirty-two leaders defected to PDP in 2024, representing nearly half of one faction. Individually, none of these figures would collapse the APC in Osun. Collectively, they describe a party bleeding slowly but steadily, patching wounds with promises instead of redistributing spoils. The APC’s approach has been to delay and deflect, hoping that elections arrive before the arithmetic of departure becomes fatal. But politics is unforgiving. Each defection weakens the grassroots machinery, erodes credibility, and emboldens the opposition.The Villa meeting was not a triumph of political strategy. It was a desperate response to a political alert from the National Security Adviser. It was an attempt to buy time, not to solve problems. The APC in Osun has refused to learn the simplest lesson of politics: inclusion matters. Patronage cannot be monopolized without consequence. When leaders are excluded, they defect. When aspirants are humiliated, they rebel. When grievances are ignored, they fester into betrayal.Tinubu’s assurances at Aso Rock may have bought temporary calm, but they did not resolve the underlying problem. The seventy-six leaders left Abuja with promises, not positions. The discarded aspirants left with bitterness, not reconciliation. The defectors left with new homes in Accord and PDP, not regrets. The APC has spent three years converting grievance into departure. Each promise has been a bandage, each defection a wound. The party is bleeding, and the Villa meeting was merely an attempt to slow the hemorrhage.The story of Osun APC is the story of a party that has allowed factionalism to hollow out its strength. The seventy-six leaders who met Tinubu represent those still willing to negotiate. The twenty Omisore loyalists who defected represent those already lost. The thirty-two who joined PDP represent those who gave up long ago. Whether the APC survives this election depends less on what was said at Aso Rock than on how many of the seventy-six decide, privately, that the defectors had the right idea.The call from the National Security Adviser was a warning: political exclusion breeds collapse. The Villa meeting was a response to that warning, not a masterstroke. Unless the APC learns to share power, to include rather than exclude, it will continue to bleed—slowly, steadily, and perhaps fatally.
*For comments, reflections and further conversation, reach me at samuelagogo4one@yahoo.com or call +2348055847364*
