Osun Rerun: How Omisore could help Tinubu, APC retain Osun on Thursday

Voters in Ife North, Ife South, Osogbo, and Orolu LGAs are the four places that will make or mar the chances of the leading contestants in the rerun of the governorship race of Osun on Thursday.

No fewer than 3498 cancelled votes in certain wards in the four LGA occasioned the rerun.

The electoral act, according to INEC, says an election is inconclusive if the victory margin is lower than the total number of cancelled votes.

PDP’s candidate Ademola Adeleke and his rival Gboyega Oyetola have exhausted their strengths in their strongholds in Ede and Iragbiji.

The 353 votes the PDP candidate has over his rival could only be covered or increased largely if the second runner-up Omisore could back up, and join forces with either of the leading contestants in grabbing as many of the remaining 3489 votes in contest.

Omisore left the PDP in the run-up to the party primary few months ago, and got the SDP ticket to contest the race.

The manner of his defection involved some violence—the party secretariat was broken into, and hurtful words hurled at each other. This may come in the way of any alliance with the PDP.

But for the ruling APC, under the leadership of Bola Tinubu,  the strongman of the southwest politics.  to court Omisore at this critical moment will equally be an uphill task.

Party leaders, especially former Gov. Bisi Akande, whose deputy was Omisore between 1999 and 2003 when both were n AD, the forbear of the APC, has been nursing an age-long bitterness against the SDP candidate.

And again, still Lingering is the anger over the murder of former Justice Minister Bola Ige, the founder of the AD who hailed from Osun.

Many believed it was masterminded by the PDP, whose arrowhead in Osun then was Omisore who had defected to the PDP to get the governorship ticket.

He was cleared of the allegation, though.

But analysts have always said there’s no permanent friend or foe in politics—only permanent interests.