The Unsung Hero Of The Osun Election
By
Felix Oboagwina
Towards the Osun State governorship election of August 15, not a few expected heaven to fall. All the signs were there. “Dead body surplus,” as they say on the streets. No fewer than 29 corpses laid underneath the soil, lives cut short for a purely political reason. Records cited 79 violent incidents. Thugs had been imported to complement local thugs.
When E-Day came, Nigeria’s ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) invaded Osogbo, the state capital, with all its Federal might. Up to 16 governors, alongside national figures like the Senate President and Speaker, vacated their comfort zones and migrated with brazenly loud-mouthed and foul-mouthed foot-soldiers into Osun, a state their party had declared a warzone they must conquer at all costs.
It did not matter to these APC goons that what they desired did not desire them. Osun people did not hide their love for their dancing Governor Ademola Adeleke. For these citizens, this beautiful soul with a distinguished family pedigree had not only waltzed his way into their hearts, he had in performance and projects surpassed the last two APC governors.
The Nigerian police had taken sides. They were unabashedly pro-APC. For all the killings unleashed against Accord, Adeleke’s party, the police still haven’t brought any murderer to trial. Unfettered and unrestrained, the death squad roamed the streets of Osun seeking Accord people to devour. But as the Yoruba say, the craftiness of a concubine’s inner-circle can be equally matched by the cunningness of the husband’s own. Accord supporters also showed that, when pushed to the wall, they could match fire for fire. They made APC members too to pay the supreme price. Miffed with the fight-back, a certain Senator publicly egged his people to “kill Accord” members on sight. He spoke openly and on record. Yet the police failed to rein him in. On the other hand, Osun State Government VIPs, like the Chief of Staff, were rounded up. The Chief of Staff to the Governor, ANY GOVERNOR, is His Excellency’s nerve centre. Picking up Adeleke’s CoS amounted to going for Adeleke himself. But this was police victimising the victim.
The Progressives’ usual bad boys breezed in from Lagos and Abuja. They dared the Governor. They brazenly defied his efforts to enforce the peace. With police serving as their rear guard, they raided bus-stops. When Navy officers, equally brought in to provide security, picked up these goons and guns, police trampled upon “espirit de corps,” attacked this sister Force and freed the hoodlums.
In the midst of all this bizarreness, Grammy nominee musician and nephew to the Governor, Davido, internationalised APC’s iniquity. He swore to drag the Federal-ruling party to the US, the UN, the UK and the EU if it rigged the election results.
However, the most important element in Nigeria’s election is the umpire: INEC. Would the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) withstand or would it kowtow to the Federal ruling party like the police had done? It all boiled down to the new man running the commission.
When the newest Sheriff landed in INEC in October 2025, sceptics shook their fists in anger. Like the President, Professor Joash Amupitan is Yoruba. And sceptics quickly disparaged the appointment of this University of Jos Law Professor as fitting into the established profile of the President as a regional, Yoruba-centric leader. Multifarious attacks landed from several sides. The appointee’s anonymity did not help matters. Who was this Amupitan? Unlike Professor Attahiru Jega, Justice Victor Ovie-Whiskey, Justice Tayo Akpata, Professor Maurice Iwu, Professor Humphrey Nwosu and others who hugged the klieg-lights long before securing the electoral umpire job, Amupitan came from the shadows. No one knew him. UNIJOS, from where he obtained his Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctorate degrees, hardly made the news –much less this Professor of Law who earned his silk as a Senior Advocate of Nigeria in 2014. Even the little known about this UNIJOS teacher, who rose to become its Deputy Vice Chancellor, sparked controversy and rendered him politically incorrect to the powers-that-be in the Northern establishment. Why? One paper he wrote undid him. In the paper he presented in 2020, this Christian Prof had dared to pontificate against the terrorism that ravaged the North and the Fulani militants behind the bloodshed. Titling his paper as, “Nigeria’s Silent Slaughter,” the Senior Advocate of Nigeria called for urgent international intervention to stop what he termed “pogrom and attacks against the Christians and minority groups in Nigeria” by two extremist movements —Boko Haram and Fulani herdsmen. He didn’t stop with just naming and shaming these two genocide squads. Amupitan went ahead and committed the unpardonable sin of criticising the government for recognising Boko Haram as a terrorist organisation but failing to officially label Fulani herdsmen as terrorists. And in 2020, when Amupitan wrote that paper, remember, the Pan-Fulani Muhammadu Buhari held sway as President.
For that singular literary work, the Northern oligarchy declared the North-Central Kogi State-born Amupitan an anathema. They piled pressure on Tinubu to discard him like a menstrual rag. The President stubbornly paid them deaf ears.
Amupitan appears to have justified Tinubu’s confidence, and that of those who spoke up for this SAN. Under this 62-year-old Prof, INEC has held by-elections and off-cycle elections, and not one governorship poll has been returned inconclusive. None!
Think! This was the same INEC which, under its last Chairman Mahmood Yakubu, littered the entire country with “inconclusive” elections. In Mahmood’s first four years (2015-2019), his INEC conducted 46 inconclusive elections. In 2019 alone, Mahmood delivered seven inconclusive governorship elections: Sokoto, Bauchi, Adamawa, Benue, Kano, Plateau, Rivers and Kano. But Amupitan’s tenure looks like a breath of fresh air.
Same INEC!
Same Commissioners!
Same Resident Electoral Commissioners!
So what changed? A new man steers INEC’s wheel! A new sheriff came to town! Not many have sung his praise. But the Osun elections proved just how stubborn and principled this gentleman can be. Governors, 16 of them, encamped in Osun. They came with tons of cash and foot-soldiers primed to snatch, grab and run. But all their thunder and their shenanigans fizzled out into a whimper. But their efforts didn’t die easily. Phone calls assailed Amupitan from all corners –the National Assembly, The Presidency– ordering him: Stop the counting! Announce the election as inconclusive! But the UNIJOS Prof turned deaf ears and insisted the process ran its course. At the end of the day, votes counted. This unsung hero, Amupitan, ensured this happened in Osun. It took guts! It took strength of character! Say it: Yes, it took the fear of God!
What many don’t know is that Amupitan happens to be one of these public servants who cannot but flaunt their born-again toga. He is an Elder of the Christ Apostolic Church, CAC. Those who know him testify that he has lived by the CAC creed and grail. To boot, he holds no less a position than the Pro-Chancellor of the CAC-owned Joseph Ayo Babalola University, JABU. The Prof practises not orthodox Christianity, but the fire-bred brand of fundamental Christianity.
What does all this portend for 2027? When it matters most to Nigerians, will the saintly principles of this unsung hero of the Osun State election goad him to deliver a credible election? Can he? Will he?
OBOAGWINA, JOURNALIST, AUTHOR AND MEDIA CONTENT PROVIDER, SENT THIS PIECE FROM LAGOS, AND WILL WELCOME FEEDBACK VIA “[email protected]”
