How My Brother Helped Me Win Osun Governorship— Gov Adeleke

The Osun State Governor, Ademola Adeleke, has revealed how his elder brother, Deji Adeleke, helped him to win the governorship election of Osun State in 2022.

Gov Adeleke disclosed this at the 9th undergraduate convocation ceremony of Adeleke University in Ede on Sunday.

He said “Education makes a major difference in what and how we become anything in life. It is a tool we cannot do without; Interestingly, getting well educated is not time bound. We all must have read several stories of people at advanced age enrolling and graduating from universities. You all know know I am living example of how best to pursue educational degree despite age.

“Today marks a year since my election as the governor of Osun State. Four years before then, in 2018, I was rigged out and our mandate was stolen. I was subjected to the worst personality attacks and assaults in Osun political history.

“Dr Deji Adeleke encouraged me to move ahead, before I went for self exile, he called me to a meeting where we talked. He said I have been subjected to alot of things that I am not educated, he advised that I should go to America for schooling. He said the only thing I can do for Osun people if I am ready to be governor, I must get educated, I must complete my education, without completing it, he said I should forget my governorship ambition. I said, “se wahala o wa de bayi”(—hope this is not problem?). At my age, 60. It was not an easy task but I did it.

“I went on self-exile for two major reasons. Firstly, to escape the evil plot of enemies who were not satisfied with stealing the People’s mandate. Secondly, to complete my degree programmes especially as my educational qualifications dominated the 2018 campaigns. Our age must never be a barrier to educational pursuit. What we need is commitment and passion to succeed.”

Similarly, the Pro-Chancellor of the institution, Deji Adeleke said his younger brother wouldn’t have emerged as governor if the National Youth Service Corps(NYSC) deployed to Osun were willing to collaborate with the ruling party.

According to him, “Today is July 16th 2023, last year was Election Day in Osun State, on that very day, 40 polling units manned by ad-hoc staff of INEC, they are not the permanent staff but corps members, they were no where to be found with the intention of just writing the results because of N100,000 without thinking. Only one of them said no to it. If they have succeeded, Governor Ademola Adeleke wouldn’t have become governor today.

“So we started looking for them, luckily we had the co-operation of INEC on that day, so we started calling from our situation room to report the matter. They called the NYSC corps members to threaten them that if they fail to show up they will end up in jail. Some them did not show up at the polling unit until 1PM.

“So the 40 units with 3 corps members each totaling 120 corps members would have tampered with the will of Osun people. These 120 young people will have come around to criticize Nigeria to say they are tired of Nigeria, tired of leadership when they contributed to pulling Nigeria down.”

Earlier, the Vice-Chancellor of the institution, Professor Solomon Adebola disclosed that 537 bagged First Class degrees while the school produced 75 graduands for postgraduate degrees.