Osun Poll Tension: Adeleke Accuses Police, APC of Violence

Investigations, News, Osun State, Public Safety

Osun Poll Tension: Adeleke Accuses Police, APC of Violence

Adeleke’s blistering accusation that police and APC are turning Osun into a battlefield has pushed the 15 August governorship race into its most combustible phase yet.

Atlantic Post

July 31, 2026

3–4 minutes

Ademola Adeleke, All Progressives Congress, Election Violence, Nigerian Police, Osun Governorship Election, vote-buying allegations

OSOGBO — Osun State’s march towards the 15 August governorship election has entered its most combustible phase yet, after Governor Ademola Adeleke turned a peace accord in Osogbo into a blistering accusation against the police and the opposition APC.

The APC candidate, Bola Oyebamiji, was absent from the ceremony, while INEC and the National Peace Committee insisted the accord was meant to be a serious public commitment, not a ritual.

Adeleke said he “should have boycotted” the meeting because of violence he said had engulfed the state over the last few months, and accused forces loyal to his predecessor and current Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Gboyega Oyetola, of sponsoring attacks.

In the same intervention, he warned of an “active progression towards genocide”, a phrase that instantly underlined just how dangerous the rhetoric has become on the eve of a high-stakes poll.

The governor’s warning did not come in a vacuum. On 24 June, the Osun police command itself convened a stakeholders’ peace meeting with the military, INEC, political parties and other agencies after a surge in killings and attacks in Osogbo, Ede, Esa-Oke, Ilobu and Ile-Ife.

At that meeting, the police commissioner warned against thuggery, billboards being destroyed and campaign intimidation, while the state’s Resident Electoral Commissioner urged calm, stressing that “election is not war”.

The latest flashpoint is the arrest of Teslim Igbalaye, the Secretary to the State Government, and five others. Police say they recovered N4.8 million, Permanent Voter Cards, a voter register, a laptop, photocopier and printer from a residence linked to him, and maintained that the raid was intelligence-led and tied to suspected electoral offences.

The command later insisted that only six people were arrested and that they were all adults, with the youngest around 40 years old.

Adeleke’s camp rejected the police account, describing the operation as unlawful and politically motivated. In TheCable’s report, the Imole Campaign Council said the Osun police command had become “puppets” of the APC and alleged that the arrests were aimed at crippling the governor’s grassroots structure ahead of the election.

The governor himself went further, alleging that more than 60 Accord leaders had been moved to Abuja and Nasarawa prisons, and demanding that anyone accused of an offence be charged in Osun, where the courts are available and competent. That is why the present crisis matters far beyond the personal feud now dominating headlines.

In a state already marked by reports of shootings, political attacks and pressure on the police commissioner, every arrest is now being read through the lens of electoral control rather than ordinary criminal justice. That perception alone is corrosive, because it weakens trust in the security architecture that is supposed to protect the vote.

The police, for their part, have defended the operation as lawful and evidence-based. By contrast, the opposition camp has accused the command of partisanship, while the APC has portrayed the arrest as vindication of its long-running claims about vote-buying and manipulation.

In other words, the same incident has been converted into three competing narratives: law enforcement, political persecution and political exposure.

The peace summit itself was meant to calm these tensions. Instead, it exposed them. INEC’s chairman described the peace accord as a “moral treaty”, while Cardinal John Onaiyekan reminded the parties that it was “not just a formality, a ritual”.

Yet the absence of the APC candidate, the governor’s public warning, and the fresh arrests have turned what should have been a symbolic pledge into a live test of institutional neutrality.

At the time of filing, the police had defended the arrest, Adeleke’s camp had condemned it, and the broader accusation of police-backed political violence had not been addressed in a comprehensive public response by all the individuals and institutions named in the governor’s speech.

What is already clear is that Osun’s election is no longer simply a contest of manifestos; it is becoming a referendum on whether the state’s security apparatus can still be trusted to stand above party politics.