Omooba Dotun Babayemi is a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Osun State. He is also one of the leading governorship aspirants on the platform of the APC in the state. Since joining the governorship, he has been touring different wards and local government areas in the state. In this interview with Gbenga Aderanti, he shares his experience visiting the grassroots, his plans for Osun, why the APC will perform better in the 2026 election in Osun and the 2027 general election in Nigeria, and reasons the opposition is keying into President Tinubu’s vision, among others. Excerpts:
Omooba Dotun Babayemi is a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Osun State. He is also one of the leading governorship aspirants on the platform of the APC in the state. Since joining the governorship, he has been touring different wards and local government areas in the state. In this interview with Gbenga Aderanti, he shares his experience visiting the grassroots, his plans for Osun, why the APC will perform better in the 2026 election in Osun and the 2027 general election in Nigeria, and reasons the opposition is keying into President Tinubu’s vision, among others. Excerpts:
THERE are different blocks, different groups within your party, the APC. How confident are you that you are going to clinch the ticket?
The most important thing in Osun State at the moment is to ensure that we return good governance to the state. Additionally, we are focused on not just 2026, but on 2027. We have seen what has happened across the nation over the last two years plus, since President Bola Ahmed Tinubu came to power. Things like the stability of the dollar, which is now beginning to trickle down; issues around the fuel subsidy, which, at the moment, the benefits are now being felt at the grassroots. Those two things are paramount in our minds.
For 2026, it is important that with the return of good governance, it means that the current structure and the government that we have in Osun will not come back. People are yearning for good governance.
There are 10 of us that have expressed interest to seek the ticket of the APC, that itself is an indication that something is being done right, not just within the party in the state under the leadership of Alhaji Gboyega Isiaka Oyetola, who is also the leader of the party, but also at the at the national level, that is the only thing that can generate that level of interest when you are in the opposition because people know that with the APC, it will be different.
Coming to the issue of the ticket, the 10 of us who have expressed interest are quite capable, and are more qualified to be governor of the state than the person who is sitting in the seat at the moment. The 10 of us are professionals; we are all well-grounded in the area of administration and governance. Our party, the APC, is a party of discipline; it is a party that puts justice, equity and fairness in everything they do. We expect that at the time of the primaries, they will put in place a system that will ensure that the best candidate emerges. From my perspective, considering my experience in private industry, humanitarian services, and governance, I would be seen as the right candidate for the party to lead the party back in 2026, for the era of good governance.
You met with the stakeholders, leaders and members of the party recently. What informed this? How receptive were they?
The reason that we decided to go out to the people is because we heard their yearnings within the state, saying, “Is this how we are going to continue if we come back again to this era?”
The best administration that Osun has ever experienced was the administration of Alhaji Isiaka Gboyega Oyetola, where things were put in place not just for that period of four years, but for continuity. Unfortunately, all that has been thrown into the basket. The average citizen and resident of Osun are now troubled. In listening to the yearnings of our people, we felt it was important to first take the pulse at the grassroots to gauge their expectations from the state, the expectations from the federal government, and feedback from the people. Get back from the people how they feel about the policies that have been introduced by Mr. President, the Renewed Hope Agenda, how is it seen by the people, how do we engage them to be able to show them that this is where he is going, of course when you start a journey, you don’t begin to see the impact immediately.
We went out to the 30 local government and area offices, we interacted with party members and party officials, and the reception that we got was profound. It was obvious that the people could now see the difference between what the government is today and what the government was before Alhaji Gboyega Isiaka. They were quite receptive, and we were encouraged that, come 2026 and 2027, the APC, both at the state level and in 2027, continuation of the Renewed Hope Agenda of Mr President is something they are looking forward to.
Talking about consultations and meetings, many people will be interested in your plans and programmes for the state…
Our plans for the state are versed. They are aligned to a large extent and are in sync with the Renewed Hope Agenda of the president.
I will start with agriculture. Osun is primarily an agrarian environment. One of the things that we saw when we went out was how bad things were in the rural areas, especially regarding our rural roads and our feeder roads. We have gone round the extreme of the state, and what we saw was appealing.
In our hinterlands, if you go to Ife South area, all the way to Ikire, going from there, all the way from Ifetedo, through Ikire, through Ago Owu, all the way to Asejire, the soil that we have there produces Category A cocoa that is recognised globally, we have not done anything with that God given benefits. I’m talking about a distance close to 100 kilometres; there are no roads, only motorcycles can go there. Not just our cash crops, but also regular agricultural products that our farmers grow, whether cassava or maize, 75 per cent of the produce we have in those areas, including cash crops, gets destroyed at the farm because there is no way to get them out. We will look at how we can boost our economy, leveraging the agricultural value chain. If you put the processing industry in any of those areas, the raw materials are already there; we would bring industries that would come to leverage those things. We will not be shipping our raw materials.
At the moment, two flyover bridges, worth about N20-25 billion, are being built in Osogbo, where there is no traffic. If you put those funds to use, we can use this to impact the economy, and it will have a direct impact on our IGR.
If you move over from that side of the state, and you go to Ejigbo, from Iwo through Ejigbo industrial cities, all the way to Ogbomosho, the soil that we have there produces the best cashew that you can get anywhere; we are not getting anything, there are no benefits to the indigenes of Osun.
If you go back to the time past, we had boards, where, irrespective of what happened, the farmers and the indigenes of the state were assured of their revenues. If I put my effort into it, it would bring about these returns.
The government’s responsibility is to provide infrastructure and the opportunity for our farmers to be able to thrive. We used to have a Cocoa Board, a Cashew Board; all of these things have disappeared. We have farm settlements in Osun; we have four of them, we have one in Iwo, we have one in Orile Owu, and nothing meaningful is being done, even at the local government level, to be able to support the farmers or put industries that can leverage on the proceeds that they are coming with.
Osun should be the food basket of the nation. We are positioned properly to be able to supply food; we are like the nucleus of the Southwest. The distance to Ibadan, with the distance to Lagos, is very short, with the good road network we border Ondo State, we border Ekiti State, the opportunities are many.
You move from agriculture to an area of employment. When this government came in, the first thing they did was to reverse some of the good work that had been done in terms of employing our health workers. In the last three years, they sacked some of the teachers who were brought in by Alhaji Oyetola when he was in office. They even charged some of our indigenes to come and apply two and a half years ago, paying money to apply for jobs, till today, not one single teacher has been employed by this current government.
We had 10,000 O’Yes workers at a time; they were workers gainfully employed, they were given a sense by the government that ‘I add value to the system,’ they were all sacked at the same time.
In the area of health, if you look at our primary health centres, in going around areas, we were able to see it and they gave us feedback. Ex- Ex-Governor Oyetola refurbished all the primary health centres in the 332 wards that are in the state, put equipment there, put medications there, but today everything has gone to waste. I can confidently say that 75 per cent of the primary health care centres, especially in the non-urban areas, are not functional today. If primary health care is not working, what you see people understand governance to be is just a show and tell. Governance is more than entertainment; it is a responsibility that those who have been put into the position to serve in the state have to make sure that the lives of the people are made better. Osun deserves better than what we are getting today, that is the reason that our party is determined that we are going to key into the Renewed Hope Agenda of Mr. President and deliver good governance to the people.
It is not enough to have laudable programmes; again, the past governors had plans too, but they were messed up. What are the efforts you are making to ensure that you do not make the same mistake?
One of the reasons we went out, we visited 30 local governments. In the 30 local governments and the area office, which is Modakeke, we have 332 wards. Our consultation is not left to the state level, to the urban level, or the local government; our consultation is with the people. One of the things we found out is that the people where the structure is provided to them are ready to embrace it. The things we are talking about are not just ideas that come from us, yes, we have the vision, but for a government to succeed, you have to give ownership of those things back to the people. Every human being has a desire to better themselves, and government responsibility is to ensure that it provides the right security, the welfare of the people is topmost, and the infrastructure is provided. So the success of a government is not based on what you are doing, but based on the ownership of it, and the fact that the average Osun indigene is driving along with us, we set the vision, but the ownership of what we plan to do belongs to the people.
You have been to 30 local governments and area offices….
Yes, we have been to 30 local governments and area offices. We started the ward visits, and as of today, we have completed 20 per cent of the ward visits out of the 332. We started in the rural areas, so that we can get a feel, and now we are bringing it into the centre so that we have a full view of what these issues are. If you go to Olaoluwa Local Government, Ward 5, and you speak to the residents there, and you ask them what challenges they are facing? They will tell you that their primary challenge is employment for their children. Just move over one ward and go to Ward 6, in Ola Oluwa Local Government, they will tell you that their problem is safe drinking water. That is a distance of a kilometre or two. It is important to hear from people what is important to them before you start drawing out programmes that do not fit the needs of the people.
You said you went to the party secretariat to express your intention. How did they receive you?
Yes, we expressed interest, realising that our party is best positioned, especially with what the president has been doing with the Renewed Hope Agenda. We expressed interest in May of this year to vie for the governorship position under the banner of our great party, APC. APC is a party of discipline and a party of structure. That process starts with the elders and the leadership of the party in the state. We expressed that this is what I’d like to do, this is what I’m bringing to the table. This is how I keyed into the manifesto of the party itself. I’m bringing the dividends of democracy to the people. We did that in May, and after a week, we went to our party secretariat.
Yes, other aspirants have expressed interest as well, but we were the first to visit the party secretariat. You have to understand that the norm in an environment where a party is not in government is that people are not drawn to that party, but it is the exact reverse in Osun. We have to give kudos to the leaders of the party. We have a few leaders in the party in Osun. Baba Bisi Akande, the national secretary of our great party is from Osun, Senator Ajiboba Basiru, but most especially, Alhaji Isiaka Oyetola, that he has been able not only to sustain the party members and keep them motivated, but has also been attracting people from other parties, not just the PDP, but other parties in Osun, are now realizing that the manifesto and vision that has been put down by Alhaji Isiaka Oyetola, the leader of the party is one they want to key into.
In 2023, there were three senators, all of the PDP extraction, nine reps, but as I speak with you today, two of the senators have crossed to the APC. In one of the senatorial districts in the state, Osun East, the three House of reps members that were elected on the platform of the PDP, those are the representatives of the people, three of them have crossed to the APC. Why? Because they understand what is happening nationally, and what Mr. President is doing, the benefits of that need to get to their constituents, the only way they can do that is to build from the ground up, their constituents have spoken to them and said look, we can see that this is the party that will lead to prosperity, so we want to be part of that.
We are growing organically, and the party members are not leaving, yet we are attracting, which shows you that the government in power in Osun today is a failure. It is seen by the residents, is seen by the voters, is seen by the people of Osun as a failure, and everybody is keying into the vision right from top to the bottom, and they are now expressing that we are building this from the bottom we are not going anywhere.
It is the first time an individual, a governorship aspirant in the last 20-30 years, has gone on ward visits. It is difficult to serve people when you don’t fully understand their challenges. We are not going there to talk to them, we are going there to listen to engage with them to understand what their beliefs are as to what their expectations of government are. That is the practical example of the type of party the APC is. It is a party that believes that government is for the people and it is by the people. It is what we hear from them that will push up the chain, not just within our state but at the national level.
Talking about the parties, I saw the crowd that attended the African Democratic Congress (ADC) rally in Osun. Is your party worried?
Not at all. We are not worried. The reason we are not worried is that what you see, which is called ADC in Osun, is just an evolution of the same group of people that felt dissatisfied with how governance was being done. I told someone that the government that has done the best in terms of administration has been the government of the Honourable Minister, Alhaji Gboyega Isiaka Oyetola. It is impossible for a party to leave power for 12 years and there would be no be differences, but the fact that we had differences, politics is about communication, is about sitting down, is about negotiation, is about ‘I have seen what you have done, this is what you should do.’ There were a few issues during the transition from one APC government to the other and a few disgruntled people felt we were better off being outside of the mainstream, and they started calling themselves Omoluabis. It was an evolution of TOP, to Omoluabi, and now, it is called ADC.
What we have seen and we have heard is that people who are earnestly yearning for the APC to come back to government. There was a time in this state they called us very wrongly a civil servant state. There is an opportunity to industrialize this state significantly. There was a time in this state that half salaries were still being given to workers, it was based on the economic reality at that time, and that was a period of 30 months or so, but as Governor Oyetola came into power, the first four years, he ensured that all the civil servants collected, for the duration of four years collected their entitlements in full. There was no one person that was owed. It wasn’t that allocation or the IGR had significantly increased, but it was financial prudence and he was prioritising the welfare of the people.
When you look at the ADC, we see our brothers there, and we know that before we get to the election proper, a significant number of them will come back home because they are progressives at the end of the day. So, it is not a source of worry for us, we know that quite a number of people from different local governments, because of one thing or the other felt look this is the best approach, were convinced especially with what the president is doing that is being felt at the grassroots, we are convinced that with the vision we are going to put forward and with the manifesto that the people will see, that a significant number of them will come back home, and work towards the progress of progressive party, the party of the people getting back to power.
As it is right now, there are aggrieved people within the part and after the primaries, many will still feel aggrieved. What would you be telling the party? What would you be telling them not to make them feel aggrieved?
One of the things that our party is doing, our primary is for another six months, is ensuring that all the aspirants see that the primary is going to be done in a way where justice, equity, and transparency exist.Under the leadership of Baba Akande and Alhaji Oyetola, we have a section in our party called Igbimo Agba which is a committee of the wise men, the older generation that we can learn from, the people that interacted with the initial progressives, whether the late Chief Awolowo or Chief Bola Ige, who have learnt that the priority of any of government is the people and their welfare and their future, they now tied that to prosperity, that is what we are preaching.
Our leadership sat down, Igbimo Agba, under the leadership of Engineer Sola Akinwumi, who is the chairman, and over the last two months, they have come up with a code of conduct, and presently put together guidelines. They have met with the aspirants as recently as yesterday; we all sat down together. One of the things we know is that we are one big family. God works mysteriously and he puts His things across for us to be able to learn from. I can tell you that the people of Osun today are yearning eagerly for the APC to come back into power, based on that, we are putting our party, we are putting the president, we are putting the people, the things that the president has been doing nationally, and we are putting the yearnings of the people first.
The process that will throw up the candidate of the party is going to be a well thought out one. We are brothers and we see ourselves as brothers and sisters ,you never can tell we may still have female aspirants, hopefully come up and say, I would like to govern Osun State, we see ourselves as one big family. As it is in the tradition of the progressives, it is in that tradition that there are laid down processes and procedures we will follow to the letter and our expectation is that when the primaries are conducted, it is going to be fair, equitable, and just. The aspirants have all committed that we will abide by the decision of the party arising from the primaries. We have committed that the people are more important than the individual aspirations, we are ten different individuals, what I bring to the table is distinct from what other person brings to the table, but there is none of us that emerges as the candidate of the party that will not be a benefit to the people of Osun.
As it is right now, your party is controlling 23 states, but the fear in many quarters is that Nigeria might turn into a one-party state. What are your thoughts?
Democracy is about ensuring that there is a government in place that is for the people and that is by the people. We are not asking anybody to come to our party. People are expressing interest in joining the APC but not just in Osun but all over Nigeria. We are talking about Osun as a microcosm of Nigeria. One-third of the elected members in the national Assembly in the last two months have realised that what the president is doing is in the best interest of their constituents, and they have crossed to the APC on their own free will.
I think in our democratic journey, the situation in Osun at the moment is the first time we are seeing a serving governor who was elected for the first time on the platform of a party and after three years, he is desperately trying to cross over. If there are viable options, the PDP as it is today, whether nationally or at the state level, puts forward a vision or manifesto of programmes that is of benefit to the people; they will not be running around as they are presently. It is an attraction, people are seeing this is where the country needs to go, this is the party that provides the platform under the leadership of the president, which is to the benefit of the people, we want to be a part of that. There will always be opposition; you have seen a group of disgruntled elements. Association of disgruntled people have assembled themselves, they have always been part of the government in the last 20-30 years, what are they planning to do differently from what they did when they were in power, whether from the Labour Party, PDP, or from any other parties, they are now assembling into one vehicle called ADC, the truth is that Nigerians know better, they can read in between the line. You have had the opportunity to do this severally, whether as state governor, Minister, they have assembled themselves together. The difference today is that the president is putting an average Nigerian first. It is the constituents that are telling the people, this is where we see the light, the direction we believe we should go.
We are not concerned about a one-party state that is not going to happen, there will always be vehicles, the president has said, and we have seen it, he would allow democracy to thrive, and we are doing that across the country.
What are your plans for communities that are entrenched in Osun governance?
Our plans in ensuring that governance is not just done from the centre, one of the reasons I said earlier why we chose to go out not just not just in 30 local governments but to 332 wards in the state is to ensure that the style of governance that we will put in place will be the one that collaborates rights from the grassroots, that is addressing the challenges, the needs and take ownership right from the grassroots, and we will build it up from there, that is giving government back to the people.
