The African Democratic Congress (ADC), which many observers say underperformed terribly in Saturday’s governorship election, says its low vote count was due to its collaboration with the Accord party, which won the election.
The ADC said its “collaboration” with the Accord Party during the 15 August Osun State governorship election was a deliberate strategy to prevent the All Progressives Congress (APC) from winning.
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The ADC’s National Publicity Secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, disclosed this on Monday during an interview with Trust TV while assessing the party’s performance in the election.
PREMIUM TIMES reported that the election was won by the incumbent governor and Accord candidate, Ademola Adeleke, who secured 511,067 votes.
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His closest challenger, the APC candidate, Bola Oyebamiji, polled 444,815 votes, while the ADC candidate, Najeem Salaam, came a distant third with 17,180 votes.
Despite the wide margin between Mr Salaam’s votes and those of the two leading candidates, Mr Abdullahi said the ADC did not consider its performance a failure because its broader objective was to prevent the APC from reclaiming power in the state.
He said the party had identified the risk of opposition votes being divided early enough in the electoral process and decided to work with Accord.
“We saw the possibility of collaboration. We saw the possibility earlier enough that if we decided to go full throttle, the possibility that the opposition would divide the votes and the APC would take the victory was there,” he said.
“And that was why we saw the opportunity to work together, and that was what happened.”
Although the ADC seeks to be the major party to defeat the APC in next year’s general election, the party has continued to perform poorly in off-cycle elections, hardly getting up to 10 per cent of the votes in elections it has taken part in. In Osun, where the ADC national secretary, Rauf Aregbesola, is a former governor, the party got less than 5 per cent of the total votes cast.
Asked whether the ADC directed its Osun supporters to vote for Mr Adeleke, Mr Abdullahi said the party “cooperated with the Accord party.”
He added that the decision had the backing of the ADC leadership.
According to him, the party’s definition of victory in the election was not limited to having its candidate emerge as governor but also included preventing the APC from returning to power in Osun.
“That is why we can confidently celebrate what is going on in Osun, because for us, victory means that APC was defeated,” he said.
“So we don’t see the fact that our governorship candidate did not emerge as an occasion of defeat or failure. The failure, the defeat of the APC, was a real victory for us.”
ADC links Osun strategy to 2027
Mr Abdullahi said the development in Osun had demonstrated that opposition parties could defeat the APC in the 2027 elections if they were able to put aside their differences and work together.
He described the cooperation with Accord as a deliberate decision whose outcome, he said, had validated the strategy.
“It’s something that was deliberate, and we are glad that the outcome has justified the confidence that everyone has put in the process, and it has proved that the opposition working together can actually defeat this incumbent, no matter how awesome they are,” he said.
However, the ADC spokesperson said his party would not claim sole responsibility for Mr Adeleke’s victory.
He attributed the outcome primarily to the electorate and the Accord candidate.
“When I say that we are not taking credit, we are saying that the credit belongs to the people of Osun State,” Mr Abdullahi said.
“The victory belongs to Ademola Adeleke, who, in spite of all odds, still managed to emerge as the governor of Osun State.”
However, despite the ADC’s claims, Mr Adeleke has thanked President Bola Tinubu for allegedly playing a neutral role in the election. The governor, after his victory, also restated his support for Mr Tinubu’s re-election on the APC platform.
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