A former Accord Party presidential candidate, Prof Chris Imumolen, has faulted the claim that President Bola Tinubu played no role in Governor Ademola Adeleke’s victory in the August 15 Osun governorship election, describing the position as “ungrateful and pretentious.”
Imumolen, in a statement on Sunday, said reducing Tinubu’s role to whether he campaigned for Adeleke or provided financial and political support was an attempt to overlook what he described as the President’s democratic restraint before and during the election.
The former presidential candidate was reacting to an interview published in PUNCH Online wherein the spokesperson of the Imole Campaign Organisation, Mr Pelumi Olajengbesi, said Tinubu offered no support to the governor’s re-election and attributed the victory to the votes of Osun residents and Adeleke’s performance in office.
Imumolen said the argument failed to recognise that political support could also take the form of deliberately refusing to deploy state power against an opponent. “President Tinubu demonstrated an extraordinary level of democratic restraint in Osun. He remained neutral even when the candidate of his own party was contesting the election and, by virtue of the family relationship involved, the contest had an additional political sensitivity.
“He did not turn the election into a personal battle. He did not deploy the power of his office to intimidate the opposition. Instead, he allowed the people of Osun to make their choice. That, in itself, is a significant contribution to the credibility of the electoral process,” he said.
The APC candidate in the election, Bola Oyebamiji, contested against the incumbent governor, who was seeking a second term on the platform of the Accord Party. Adeleke eventually secured 511,067 votes to defeat Oyebamiji, who polled 444,815 votes, while the African Democratic Congress candidate, Najeem Salaam, recorded 17,180 votes.
Imumolen argued that Tinubu’s conduct was particularly noteworthy because the election involved the President’s own party. “It is rare in contemporary African politics to see a sitting president demonstrate such restraint when his own party is involved in a fiercely contested state election,” he added
