Governor Ademola Adeleke’s victory in last weekend’s Osun governorship election surprised few observers. He entered the contest with incumbency, a family network, Davido’s digital reach and a grassroots structure that followed him to Accord. What has surprised many supporters is the speed with which Adeleke embraced figures they had spent months identifying as political enemies.
Within days of defeating the All Progressives Congress candidate, Adeleke reaffirmed his endorsement of President Bola Tinubu for a second term, thanked him for allowing a credible election and carried his Certificate of Return to the Presidential Villa. He then visited FCT Minister Nyesom Wike, where Davido exchanged jokes with an influential defender of the federal establishment.
To supporters who endured threats, arrests and campaign violence, those images jarred. Election-related casualty figures remain disputed: the Accord leadership claimed 29 members were killed, Adeleke earlier spoke of eight party members, while an independent conflict tracker reportedly recorded 18 deaths across 34 incidents. Undisputedly, people died, others were injured and property was destroyed. Adeleke has since announced a N500 million victims’ fund and scholarships for dependants of those killed.
His warmth towards Abuja can appear insensitive. It risks suggesting that the pain of foot soldiers becomes negotiable once the leader’s mandate is secured.
The contradiction was already visible before the election. Davido declared that anyone supporting the APC in Osun was an enemy of progress. Critics immediately asked why the party could be ruinous in Osun but worthy of another presidential term nationally. Adeleke complicated matters after victory by explaining that his support for Tinubu rested partly on the President being Yoruba and on the continuation of federal projects.
That explanation was clumsy. A governor may cooperate with a president without reducing leadership to ethnic identity. Nigerians struggling with inflation, insecurity and purchasing power expect endorsements to be justified by performance, not ancestry. Adeleke’s formulation weakened his claim to issue-based politics and handed critics a charge of opportunism.
Yet politics is rarely as emotionally tidy as campaign rhetoric. Adeleke’s manoeuvres may be better understood as realpolitik rather than affection. Nigeria’s federal structure gives the Presidency enormous influence over security agencies, federal projects, anti-corruption institutions and intergovernmental finance. An opposition governor who treats Abuja as a permanent battlefield may satisfy partisan purists while exposing his state to costly retaliation or neglect.
Adeleke has already experienced that vulnerability. Before the election, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission restricted an Osun government account. Tinubu intervened, directed the agency to return to court and vacate the restriction, and personally contacted the governor. Adeleke later said he instructed his Attorney-General to discontinue the state’s legal action after the presidential intervention. Whatever questions that episode raises about institutional independence, it demonstrated the practical value of access to the President.
The deeper pressure is the local government allocation crisis. About N202 billion due to Osun’s 30 councils was reportedly withheld over 15 months amid litigation and a bitter dispute over council elections. The controversy has affected resources required for primary healthcare, teachers, council workers, pensions and grassroots services. Adeleke cannot resolve a problem of that scale through rhetoric alone. He needs legal clarity, banking cooperation and, inevitably, engagement with federal authorities.
His dance around Tinubu may therefore be aimed at unlocking those funds, attracting federal roads and insulating Osun from another round of hostile federal action. It may also explain his willingness to meet Wike. There is no public proof that Wike secretly financed Adeleke’s re-election, but the FCT minister’s reach across party lines makes cordiality politically useful in practice. Davido’s playful “I beat you guys” exchange showed that fierce contests do not always eliminate private relationships.
Still, realpolitik has limits. Reconciliation cannot become amnesia. Adeleke must continue demanding investigations into killings, intimidation, vote buying and threats recorded around the election. Friendship with powerful figures must not purchase silence over alleged abuses by their allies. Nor should cooperation with Tinubu turn Osun into an appendage of the APC ahead of 2027.
The governor also owes his supporters a clearer explanation. If his endorsement is designed to secure local government funds and federal projects, he should say what Osun stands to gain and establish measurable demands. Otherwise, every photograph at the Villa will look like capitulation, and every warm handshake will deepen suspicion that campaign sacrifices were merely bargaining chips.
Adeleke’s famous dancing has often been mocked as evidence of unseriousness. Yet his post-election choreography is anything but casual. He is attempting to maintain an independent state mandate while cultivating a President whose cooperation can materially affect that mandate. It is a delicate dance between gratitude and submission, access and autonomy, reconciliation and accountability.
Whether the strategy succeeds will not be determined by smiles with Tinubu or banter with Wike. It will be judged by results: the release of council funds, federal investment in Osun, protection of political freedoms and justice for victims of violence. If those gains materialise, Adeleke’s supporters may recognise wisdom in his steps. If they do not, his dance around yesterday’s enemies will be remembered not as strategic politics, but as a troubling retreat from the convictions that powered his victory.
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