Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke’s victory was celebrated in a Facebook post that later became the subject of controversy. Senator Ajibola Basiru, the lawmaker representing Osun Central Senatorial District and Chairman of the Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, publicly disassociated himself from the account that made the post. In a statement issued on Thursday, Basiru clarified that he had no connection to the Facebook page, which was titled “Surajudeen Ajibola Basiru” and featured his photographs alongside the message, “Buga judgment has been finally laid to rest!!! Alhamdulilah.”
Basiru’s rebuttal came after the Court of Appeal in Abuja, in a unanimous judgment on an appeal filed by Adeleke, declared the governor-elect the winner of the governorship poll. In his statement, titled “APC Must Go to the Supreme Court,” Basiru accused the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Adeleke administration of orchestrating the post. He argued that the account was “obviously part of the mischievous handiwork of the rudderless Peoples Democratic Party government of Jackson Adeleke in Osun State, seeking to validate the judgment of the Court of Appeal.” Basiru suggested that the PDP was desperate to secure “dubious validation” of the appellate decision, fearing that it might not survive a review by the Supreme Court.
The Director of Media for the Osun PDP, Oladele Olabamiji, rejected Basiru’s allegations. Olabamiji asserted that neither the party nor Governor Adeleke would engage in such a scheme, describing Basiru as “someone who will soon become just an ordinary member of the public after he was roundly defeated by our party.” He added, “If we have any headache at all, he is not among our worries. We can’t reduce ourselves to the level of creating a pseudo‑Facebook account and start putting materials. To achieve what? He doesn’t even have any political value to warrant such a move, and more so, we don’t do such a thing.”
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