The Osun State chapter of the All Progressives Congress has said it was not briefed before the announcement of the State Presidential Campaign Committee for the re-election of President Bola Tinubu.
The party said this on Thursday, a few hours before the scheduled inauguration of the campaign council.
This was contained in a statement signed by the Osun APC chairman, Tajudeen Lawal, obtained in Osogbo.
On Wednesday, a statement by the spokesperson for the governor, Olawale Rasheed, had announced the plan by Governor Ademola Adeleke to inaugurate the 344-member campaign council.
Prominent among those listed are former Governor Adebisi Akande; Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Adegboyega Oyetola; APC National Secretary, Ajibola Basiru; the party’s governorship candidate in the 2026 election, Bola Oyebamiji; and former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Foluke Etteh.
Others include Senators Iyiola Omisore, Jide Omoworare and Sola Adeyeye; Yinka Ajayi; former Osun Deputy Governor, Titilayo Ponle; Akintunde Adegboye; and Mumini Olabanji.
The list also includes state executives of the APC, the Peoples Democratic Party and Accord; APC and Accord candidates for the National Assembly and State House of Assembly; former National Assembly members; former state lawmakers; PDP and Accord chieftains in the state; and PDP and APC local government chairmen.
However, concerns emerged over the participation of opposition figures listed on the council, as sources in Adeleke’s camp and the Osun APC said no formal meeting had been held to determine how Tinubu’s re-election campaign would be managed in the state since Adeleke’s appointment as coordinator.
An Osun APC source, who spoke to our correspondent by telephone on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to comment, said, “The two camps have not met. We just saw the list like everyone in the state. There is uncertainty around it, but I can’t officially say what the APC reaction will be.”
Efforts to obtain an official reaction from the Osun APC to the list and the governor’s invitation to the council inauguration were unsuccessful.
The Osun APC spokesperson, Kola Olabisi, could not be reached by telephone, as calls to his line went unanswered.
Responses to text messages and WhatsApp messages seeking his reaction to the list were still being awaited as of 7:50 p.m. on Wednesday.
But reacting to the proposed inauguration, Lawal noted the importance of the task ahead, adding that the party agreed to Adeleke’s appointment as the state coordinator of Tinubu’s re-election campaign committee.
He said the move would boost Tinubu’s chances through the joint efforts and contributions of the political parties coming together.
He, however, expressed conviction that the exercise should be properly scheduled.
Lawal further said the party “did not have knowledge of any inauguration beyond the social media listing of some names yesterday afternoon by the spokesman for Governor Adeleke, Malam Olawale Rasheed, to the chagrin of the leaders, members and supporters of our party.”
“In as much as we consider the re-election of the national leader of our party, President Tinubu, as a collective task which we have been working vigorously and assiduously to achieve through various means, it is our view and conviction that such an exercise should be properly scheduled.
“We are talking about the re-election of the President of the nation under the largest democratic party in Sub-Saharan Africa and not the election of a council chairman or that of a councillor, which is the reason such an exercise should be approached with the highest official protocol required to ease the accomplishment of the exercise. Aside from the fact that not all social media news should be taken as genuine, less than 12 hours’ notice is so short that many people who would have been around are already shut out.
“It is our belief that listing the names of members of the State Presidential Campaign Committee less than 24 hours before the event proper without any prior meeting with the leadership of the party in the state was a ploy to set the state chapter of the party against the President, which can neither fly nor sit, as we consider the project as our baby which shouldn’t be handled with levity,” Lawal said.
He alleged that the current arrangement of the State Presidential Campaign Committee was designed to stoke and promote an “avoidable misunderstanding between our party and the appointed state coordinator of the campaign in the state which we shall try as much as possible to avoid.”
He also declared that the Osun APC was not “opposed to conceding anything for the re-election of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the forthcoming presidential election, but our concern is that things should be done in a proper way to achieve desired results.”