Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke has condemned the arrest of the state chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Sunday Bisi, demanding his immediate release as voting continues in the governorship election.
In a statement issued on Saturday by his spokesperson, Mallam Olawale Rasheed, Adeleke said Bisi was detained at his residence in Ilesa shortly after returning from voting. The governor stated that the PDP chairman was taken to an undisclosed location without any official reason provided for the arrest. Adeleke described the action as a deliberate attempt to intimidate his supporters and accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) of working with compromised security agents to restrict PDP agents from monitoring the collation of results.
“This latest sweep on my supporters, I have authoritatively learnt, is part of a broader plan to give the APC unhindered access to change results at collation centres and upturn our wins at the poll,” Adeleke said. He characterized the alleged interference with the collation process as an attack on democracy and warned against the use of state institutions to manipulate the election outcome.
The governor called for the immediate release of Bisi and others he described as political prisoners across Osun State. “Election should be about the people freely giving their mandates to the person of their choice without threat or force,” he added.
The arrest has heightened tensions in an already charged electoral environment. The PDP alleges a systematic effort to undermine the credibility of the vote through the targeting of party officials. Security agencies have not yet issued a public response to the governor’s accusations or clarified the legal basis for Bisi’s detention. As collation of results proceeds across the state, the focus remains on the integrity of the process and the safety of electoral officials and party agents.
