By In a rare cross-party gesture, the National Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, Senator Surajudeen Basiru, travelled to Osogbo on Sunday for a courtesy call on Governor Ademola Adeleke, a visit captured on video and shared online by a source identified as Ayekooto.
Returning a Personal Kindness
Basiru opened by addressing a personal debt of gratitude. In his explanation, he noted that Adeleke had attended the funeral rites for his late mother earlier this year and had also visited him personally during that period of mourning, a gesture Basiru said he could not simply overlook despite the political rivalry between them. He acknowledged that he had deliberately held off on returning the visit until after the governorship election, explaining that doing so any earlier risked being misread given how fiercely he had campaigned against Adeleke at the time. As he put it, politics can be very toxic, and any visit mid-campaign would likely have been misinterpreted.
A Congratulations He Didn’t Expect to Give
Basiru’s second reason for the visit was to formally congratulate Adeleke on retaining the governorship, a contest the incumbent won on the Accord Party platform against APC’s Bola Oyebamiji. He was candid that the outcome was not the one he had worked for, having actively campaigned for Oyebamiji, but framed the result as ultimately in the hands of a higher power. Describing himself as a student of President Bola Tinubu’s brand of democratic politics, Basiru said accepting the outcome of a democratic contest, win or lose, was simply part of the process, adding that the political struggle continues regardless of any single result.
Acknowledging a Kept Promise
The third reason Basiru gave centred on Adeleke’s earlier pledge to endorse Tinubu for the 2027 presidential race. He noted that speculation had circulated in both traditional and social media suggesting the governor might abandon that commitment once his own re-election was secured. Still, he said Adeleke had instead held firm to his word, a consistency Basiru chose to acknowledge directly.
Why the Visit Stands Out
Coming so soon after a bitterly contested election and amid ongoing tension between Accord and APC over post-election violence and local government control, Basiru’s visit reads as a notable, if narrowly framed, gesture of cross-party civility. It stopped well short of any broader reconciliation between the parties. Still, it did put on record an acknowledgment, from the ruling party’s own national secretary, that the contest is over and that Adeleke’s commitments beyond the governorship race, particularly his backing of Tinubu, have so far held.
