By The Imole Campaign Council (TICC), the campaign organisation backing Governor Ademola Adeleke’s re-election bid, has dismissed the campaign pledges made by the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate, Bola Oyebamiji, describing them as an implicit admission of failures during the party’s previous stint in power in Osun State.
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In a statement signed by its spokesperson, Pelumi Olajengbesi, the Council reacted to Oyebamiji’s campaign flag-off, at which the APC candidate had promised “equitable development” alongside commitments on roads, schools, markets, healthcare, agriculture, and civil servant welfare if elected.
While acknowledging that every candidate is entitled to present a vision, the Council argued that the promises amounted to APC campaigning on projects it had failed to deliver during its own years in office, and said Osun voters should judge candidates on verifiable performance rather than “eloquent speeches.”
“It is rather ironic that those who had the opportunity to govern Osun under the APC for years are now campaigning on projects they failed to deliver when they were in power. The promises being made today are, in many respects, an admission that the previous APC administration left critical sectors requiring urgent intervention.”
The Council listed a series of achievements it attributed to the Adeleke administration, including the enrolment of over 24,000 pensioners and more than 10,000 persons living with disabilities into the state’s health insurance scheme within three years, contrasting this with what it said was an absence of such coverage under the immediate past administration of Gboyega Oyetola. It also claimed the administration cleared four years of unpaid hazard allowances owed to health workers and rehabilitated over 200 primary health centres, which it said helped Osun top the national Primary Health Care awards in both 2024 and 2025.
On the economy, the Council said the administration disbursed over N2 billion to cooperative and small business owners, including N250,000 grants to more than 15,000 businesses, and reduced the state’s domestic debt from N148 billion inherited from the Oyetola administration to N83 billion. It further claimed the government recruited over 2,000 teachers, built more than 300 new classrooms, and supported over 8,000 farmers, with some individual grants reportedly as high as N8 million.
The statement also referenced infrastructure projects it said the administration had delivered in Ile-Ife, including what it described as the first-ever flyover and dual carriageway in the town, arguing that the APC candidate could not point to comparable achievements from his own tenure overseeing the state’s finances as a former commissioner.
The Council accused Oyebamiji’s tenure managing state finances of coinciding with one of Osun’s most difficult economic periods, alleging that workers and pensioners were treated poorly during that time and that public infrastructure was left without significant repair.
It further claimed Osun residents remained wary of unfulfilled APC promises from the past, referencing what it called an “audio promotion” controversy involving unpaid salaries, though it did not elaborate further on the specifics of that reference.
The statement questioned why the APC did not accomplish its current campaign promises when it previously controlled the machinery of government in the state, and argued that campaign platforms should ordinarily be used to showcase past performance rather than repackage unmet pledges as new commitments.
“It is therefore nothing but a mere voter’s drive for Oyebamiji to be promising Osun people the same thing his party failed to do in the past. Osun people, particularly workers and pensioners cannot forget in a hurry the deluge of unfulfilled promises associated with the APC in the past, especially the audio promotion and payment of owed salary.”
The Council also noted that Governor Adeleke, through a representative, had taken part in a recent Peace and Accountability Charter initiative, which it said reaffirmed his commitment to peaceful, issue-based campaigning ahead of the August 15 gubernatorial election, and it called on all political actors in the state to embrace civility and issue-based campaigning throughout the election season.
“It is therefore nothing but a mere voter’s drive for Oyebamiji to be promising Osun people the same thing his party failed to do in the past. Osun people, particularly workers and pensioners cannot forget in a hurry the deluge of unfulfilled promises associated with the APC in the past, especially the audio promotion and payment of owed salary.”
It concluded by describing the choice before Osun voters as one between what it called a demonstrable record of project delivery and welfare-focused governance, versus a party seeking to be brought back to power on the basis of promises after what it characterised as a history of unfulfilled commitments while previously in office.
