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The presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), Omoyele Sowore, has criticised Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke for endorsing President Bola Tinubu for a second term in 2027, describing the decision as a betrayal of voters who backed him in the governorship election.
Sowore spoke while reflecting on the August 15 Osun governorship election, which Adeleke won to secure a second term.
He questioned why lives should be lost during an off-cycle election involving a relatively small electorate, while commending Osun voters for turning out to exercise their franchise.
“Why do people have to die during the election?” Sowore asked.
He said the people of Osun deserved credit for participating in the election despite concerns over violence, describing voter participation as encouraging.
“But if anybody is going to be praised, it will be the people of Osun State who came out against all odds,” he said.
Sowore, however, criticised Adeleke for endorsing Tinubu, arguing that the governor should be accountable to the people who elected him rather than align himself with the President.
“But I’ve been proven right, because after the man won, he made the most egregious mistake of his life. He endorsed Tinubu,” Sowore said.
“Only a brainless person would do that after getting the endorsement of the state electorate.”
He described the endorsement as unacceptable and questioned Adeleke’s justification for supporting Tinubu on the basis of shared Yoruba identity.
“If you want to endorse Tinubu, it’s your right. But to claim that you’re endorsing him because he’s a Yoruba man,” Sowore said, adding that Adeleke was elected governor of a state with residents from different ethnic and religious backgrounds.
Sowore also accused political actors of turning elections into contests marked by violence, referring to reports of killings during the build-up to the Osun poll.
The Nigeria Police Force had earlier said it was investigating 30 suspected politically motivated killings linked to the build-up to the election, with several suspects arrested and some prosecuted.
Adeleke himself had repeatedly raised concerns about political violence ahead of the election.
In July, he accused political actors of sponsoring attacks and said five Accord members had been killed and 15 critically wounded in attacks he attributed to suspected APC thugs.
Those claims were made by the governor’s office and were not independently established as the responsibility of the APC as a whole.
The governor had also appealed to Tinubu to intervene in the violence, despite having endorsed the President for the 2027 election.
