By Five days after reclaiming the Osun State governorship, Ademola Adeleke made his way to Abuja on Thursday for a round of post-election courtesy visits that took him first to President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa and later to Federal Capital Territory Minister Nyesom Wike.
Adeleke arrived at the forecourt of Aso Rock Villa at about 5:20–5:25 p.m., dressed in navy blue traditional attire and carrying a walking stick, stepping out of a black Toyota Land Cruiser SUV. He was accompanied by National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu and proceeded straight to the President’s office, where the two men held a closed-door meeting. It was their first face-to-face encounter since Adeleke’s re-election in Saturday’s governorship poll.
Several Osun State officials followed him into the Villa roughly twenty minutes later, including the Director-General of his campaign council, Senator Lere Oyewumi; council member Sunday Bisi; his Chief of Staff, Akinleye Kazeem; and Bamidele Salam, the federal lawmaker representing Ede North/Ede South/Egbedore/Ejigbo. During the meeting, Adeleke formally presented his certificate of return to Tinubu — a document he had received a day earlier from INEC’s South-West National Commissioner, Kunle Ajayi, at a ceremony in Osogbo where he also unveiled plans for a N500 million endowment fund for victims of election-related violence.
“Father of the Nation”
Speaking to State House correspondents afterward, Adeleke framed the visit as an act of gratitude rather than negotiation, saying he had come to thank Tinubu, whom he described as the “father of the nation,” for allowing the electoral process to run without interference. He credited the President’s stance on democracy for the free and fair outcome of Saturday’s election.
The meeting followed Tinubu’s earlier congratulatory call to Adeleke, in which the President had described the governor’s victory as confirmation of the confidence Osun residents place in him and urged him to unite the state’s people regardless of how they voted. INEC had declared Adeleke winner with 511,067 votes to APC candidate Bola Oyebamiji’s 444,815, a margin of 66,252 votes that saw Adeleke carry 19 of Osun’s 30 local government areas to Oyebamiji’s 11.
Political Undercurrents
The visit carried weight beyond ceremony. Adeleke won his second term on the Accord Party platform after defecting from the PDP, whose Osun chapter nonetheless threw its support behind his re-election bid. Since his win, he has publicly declared backing for Tinubu’s 2027 presidential re-election, a stance that has fuelled speculation about a closer political alignment between the two men ahead of next year’s general election — speculation Adeleke has pushed back against. Asked directly in a Channels Television interview whether he had struck a deal with the President, the governor dismissed the suggestion, maintaining that his support was shaped by other considerations rather than any arrangement. “As I’m talking to you right now, I’m not even thinking about that. It’s not on my agenda,” he said of any prospect of returning to the APC.
From the Villa, Adeleke proceeded to see Wike, in what his office and the minister’s aide, Lere Olayinka, both framed as a continuation of his round of engagements with key political figures in Abuja. Olayinka shared a photograph of the meeting on social media, captioning it simply as a visit from the Osun governor.
Broader Political Backdrop
Thursday’s engagements formed part of a wider flurry of Villa activity in recent days as Nigeria’s political class positions itself ahead of the 2027 election cycle, with INEC having formally opened the presidential campaign season on Wednesday. Adeleke’s visit also came against the backdrop of a difficult final stretch of campaigning in Osun, which included violent incidents in the days before and after the vote, and his newly announced victims’ fund is widely seen as a response to that period.
Neither the Villa nor Adeleke’s office disclosed further details of what was discussed behind closed doors, but the optics of the day, a Villa reception followed swiftly by a stop at Wike’s office, are likely to keep speculation alive over how far Osun’s governor intends to align himself with the federal government heading into 2027.
