As the countdown to the Aug. 8, 2026 governorship showdown ticks louder in Osun, PDP lawmakers in both the National and State Assemblies have nailed their colours to a new mast, throwing their weight behind the Accord Party and its candidate, Governor Ademola Adeleke.
The decision was reached at a stakeholders’ parley in Osogbo, where political calculations were laid bare and alliances redrawn with the precision of a chess master plotting checkmate.
Adeleke, who switched camps from the PDP to the Accord Party on Dec. 9, 2025 to seek another term, appears to have carried a sizeable political battalion along with him. The lawmakers, in a communiqué delivered by Deputy Senate Minority Leader, Sen. Lere Oyewumi, anchored their endorsement on what they described as the governor’s tangible strides across key sectors.
“Having reviewed the performance of the governor in infrastructure development, workers’ welfare, healthcare, education, and democratic stability.
“We unanimously endorse and give our total support to His Excellency, Sen. Ademola Adeleke, for a second term in office in the interest of continuity, stability, and sustained progress for Osun State”, it said.
Still, the communiqué was quick to douse any rumour that the shifting sands had swallowed the PDP whole. According to the lawmakers, the party’s backbone remains intact, its grassroots machinery humming across caucuses, councils and wards.
“The party remains united and firmly established at the National Assembly caucus level, State Assembly level, Executive Council, Local Governments, Wards, and grassroots structures across the state,” it said.
In a firm show of internal solidarity, the lawmakers passed a vote of confidence in the state PDP Chairman, Mr Sunday Bisi, alongside the State Working Committee and party executives across the 30 local government areas and 332 wards.
“We say unequivocally that they remain the executives of the party in Osun State.
“Any individual or group parading themselves as alternative leadership does not have the backing of the duly elected National and State Assembly caucus of the party in Osun State and should not be accorded legitimacy”, the communiqué said.
Beyond endorsements and political house-keeping, the lawmakers turned their gaze to the festering local government crisis. They urged President Bola Tinubu to step in and untangle what they described as a knot choking the grassroots.
They warned that the continued withholding of local government allocations was squeezing the lifeblood out of teachers, nurses, health workers, council staff, retirees and even traditional institutions, turning governance at the local level into a daily struggle.
“We call on His Excellency, the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, to give a directive to the illegal occupants to vacate immediately to avert crises.
“PDP as a party and the government in the state are law-abiding, and that is why we have chosen the path of peace and the path of law, not to throw the state into crisis,” it said.
They also appealed to residents to keep calm, toe the line of legality and stand firm in defence of democracy and good governance, even as the political temperature inches upward.
Meanwhile, in a twist that underscores the shifting loyalties in Osun’s political theatre, five PDP members of the National Assembly formally defected to the APC on Saturday, adding yet another layer to a contest already thick with intrigue.
