By Governor Ademola Adeleke used Osun State’s 35th anniversary celebrations to extend an olive branch across the state’s political divide, placing calls to several of his predecessors with a message centred on peace and reconciliation rather than political point-scoring.
Calls to Predecessors, Old and New
In a statement marking the anniversary, Adeleke said he personally reached out to former governors Bisi Akande, Olagunsoye Oyinlola and Rauf Aregbesola to mark the occasion, using the conversations as an opportunity to press home the case for healing and unity now that campaign season has passed. He said he also attempted to reach former Governor Gboyega Oyetola and APC governorship candidate Bola Oyebamiji by phone, though neither call went through.
According to the governor, the point he wanted to get across to each of them was straightforward: with the election behind the state, there should be no sense of winners and losers, only a shared responsibility to move Osun forward together.
The Two Who Didn’t Pick Up
Notably, the two people Adeleke may have most needed to reach for the reconciliation message to carry real weight, his immediate predecessor Gboyega Oyetola and Bola Oyebamiji, the man he defeated at the polls, were also the two who did not answer his calls. Whether that was simple unavailability or a more pointed snub is not something the governor’s statement addresses, but the omission stands out given that the entire point of the outreach was to bridge exactly the divide between him and the APC’s most prominent figures in the state.
Framing It as a Broader Commitment
Adeleke linked the gesture to an earlier charge from President Bola Tinubu urging him to prioritise peacebuilding and reconciliation within the state. He said that mandate would guide his continued efforts to engage stakeholders across party lines, arguing that Osun belongs to all its residents regardless of who they voted for and that the state can only benefit fully from democratic governance and development if that spirit of inclusion is upheld.
The governor described the reconciliation push as a responsibility he takes seriously and intends to sustain, pledging to keep working toward healing the state’s political divisions, uniting its people and building what he called a greater Osun.
Why the Timing Matters
The outreach comes at a moment when tensions between Adeleke’s Accord Party and the opposition APC remain unusually high, with the two sides having spent recent weeks trading accusations over local government control, alleged plans for unrest, and the killings in Ikire. Against that backdrop, a public reconciliation gesture timed to the state’s anniversary reads as an attempt to lower the political temperature, though the unanswered calls to Oyetola and Oyebamiji leave an open question about whether that outreach will be reciprocated any time soon.
