The off-season governorship election in Osun State, scheduled for August 15, already resembles a state of war. Guns are booming, and deaths are being counted in a place where ideas about good governance ought to be on parade at town-hall meetings and campaign grounds. It is all about the boo ba o pa, boo ba o bu lese brand of dog-eat-dog politics—grabbing, snatching and running away with power rather than persuasion. It’s a wide departure from the everyday notion of politics—“you say your own, I say my own, and life goes on”—the principle that reveals democracy in its simplest and most functional form.
In the Osun milieu, the police have begun to emerge as an unlikely antagonist, at least if the narratives from the Accord/Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) alliance and the African Action Congress (AAC) are anything to go by. Rather than projecting the image of a neutral law-enforcement agency ready to deal with any offender irrespective of political affiliation, the force appears to be positioning itself as an enforcer for one side of the dog-eat-dog contest. So far, only one side is crying foul while the other is busy defending police actions. That should not be in such a varied contest. Should the perception stick, the force will receive jeers rather than accolades—from both the apparent victims and their supposed oppressors—because no matter how you try, a legally established security agency can never do enough evil to satisfy the wishes of an oppressor.
I sound this note of warning to the police, the lead agency for internal security, after watching how events are unfolding in the build-up to the August 15 election. The statement released by the Osun State Police Command last Wednesday following the arrest of the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Alhaji Teslim Igbalaye, and five others is particularly instructive.
The police sought to justify the arrest by claiming that officers found two Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVCs) and an electoral register covering Wards 1 to 15 in Osogbo inside the SSG’s residence. According to the statement by the Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Abiodun Ojelabi, the operation was launched after intelligence reports indicated that suspected members of a criminal gang were hiding in the Oroki Estate area of Osogbo. One suspect, Oladele Abiodun (also known as “Ashipa”), who the police said had been on their watchlist for alleged involvement in serious crimes including murder, was arrested. The other suspects were listed as Chief Teslim Igbalaye (47, the SSG), Akande Taiwo (60), Oladele Abiodun (38), Adeyemo Lukman (45), Olaoye Muftah (50) and Aderemi Musliu (40).
Items recovered, the police said, included ₦4,810,500 in cash, a Dynabook laptop, a photocopy machine, a printer, two voter cards and a voter register for Wards 1–15. These exhibits, the statement continued, have been secured for forensic examination and further investigation. The recovery of the cash and the register, the police claimed, raises serious concerns about possible electoral offences, including: bribery of voters (vote-buying) contrary to Section 121 of the Electoral Act 2022; criminal conspiracy; harbouring or concealing a wanted criminal; and
any other offences that may be disclosed by the ongoing investigation.
The police claimed that a wanted man was arrested during the raid on the SSG’s residence. We await the outcome of further investigations. Yet raiding the home of a sitting SSG in the heat of an election and in an already charged political environment looks like overkill—an act of political provocation the Yoruba would describe as iwosi.
History offers a cautionary parallel. The crises that engulfed the Western Region and the wider South-West in the First and Second Republics grew out of attempts to poke more than one finger into the eyes of opponents. The violent eruptions that produced wetie in the First Republic and widespread attacks in the Second were largely spontaneous and fuelled by a rejection of what the Yoruba regard as iwosi. Those episodes began with hints of undue favouritism shown by the security agencies toward one side of the political divide.
The arrest of the Osun SSG raises further questions. Why were the police concerned about the presence of two voter cards in the SSG’s home? Have they conducted a census of the occupants of that house? Is there a rule that members of the SSG’s household cannot own PVCs? The discovery of ₦4.8 million should not, in itself, raise eyebrows for anyone familiar with how government operates in this country. Government officials are routinely mandated to carry out assignments that may involve cash for urgent procurements. Linking that sum to vote-buying stretches credulity. With a single vote reportedly going for as much as ₦15,000 in the recent Ekiti governorship election, ₦4.8 million would achieve very little across Osun’s 30 local governments if vote-buying were the purpose—especially when the APC is seeking to unseat an incumbent widely credited with significant infrastructure delivery.
Anyone who has monitored or participated in elections knows that a serious politician who does not possess copies of the voters’ register for his area of coverage is still a novice. Possession of such data—usually obtained legally from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)—is normal. Politicians use it to educate and mobilise voters and to support house-to-house canvassers. Those who operate phone centres for particular candidates rely on the same data to reach prospective voters. Has the Commissioner of Police who authorised the press statement ever asked himself the source of the bulk SMS that politicians routinely send during campaigns? Does he imagine the contacts are generated via guesswork?
It is good that the police have released the SSG from custody. It will be interesting to see what charges, if any, are eventually preferred against him.
The expectation of many is that the August 15 election will be conducted without bloodshed and will be free, fair and credible. The police themselves have identified 385 “dark spots.” The European Union Election Observation Hub (EU-SDGN II) has further refined the picture, identifying 13 local governments as flashpoints and noting that the prolonged crisis over control of local governments remains a source of perpetual tension. These assessments come against a backdrop of daily claims and counter-claims. Opposition parties have called repeatedly for the removal of the Commissioner of Police, Ibrahim Gotam, alleging that the force under him has been selective in its enforcement. The party of incumbent Governor Ademola Adeleke, Accord, and the AAC have been particularly vocal about police brutality and harassment. The AAC has accused the police of abandoning their constitutional duty by allowing suspected APC-loyal thugs to terrorise the Old Garage area of Osogbo for hours. Accord has alleged that 86 of its members have been detained without bail. Conversely, the APC, which is fielding Asiwaju Bola Oyebamiji, has consistently defended the police and accused the Accord/PDP alliance of vandalising its candidate’s billboards.
The police have insisted that the arrests they have made are backed by evidence and have dismissed suggestions of political bias. They have also claimed that some of those arrested confessed to plans to procure arms and ammunition for electoral violence. The truth, however, is that such arrests cannot be allowed to tilt towards only one political side. Anyone with a working knowledge of Nigerian politics knows that virtually every party harbours its own share of “bad boys,” and that many politicians subscribe to the maxim that because there is a madman on the street one must keep a madman at home. Only a handful of politicians truly want a free and fair contest. The police’s duty remains the even-handed enforcement of law and order. If they tip the legal scales in favour of one side, the police perpetrators will not be around when today’s accuser and accused make up—in line with the established political maxim: no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, only permanent interests.
My advice to the Commissioner of Police, the AIG, the DIG and the IGP as the Osun governorship election approaches is simple: Dee dee mirawo. As my people in Benin City would put it, “softly, softly, e pa.” And to every law-enforcement agent, the advice is the same: do not bend the rules in favour of a political friend, because the friend you see today may be gone tomorrow—forever.
(Published by the Sunday Tribune, August 2, 2026)
