[Opinion] Pride Goes Before a Fall: Oyetola’s Lackey and His Empty Boasts on the Osun Election

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By Pelumi Olajengbesi Esq.

Oyetola’s lackey is of no consequence in the Osun election, yet he has been fed with the idea of power and has arrogated so much of it to himself. Oyebamiji constantly speaks in a tone that suggests the people are a crowd to be managed. In his imagination, he looks at the people of Osun as an uneducated and primitive crowd that knows nothing. That is what many people saw in Bola Oyebamiji’s recent boast.

In Osogbo, Oyebamiji did not merely say he would win the coming election. He framed the August 8 election as a “penalty” in his favour, claiming the other side has “a goalpost without a goalkeeper,” meaning, in his mind, that victory is already announced, just like he had an empty goalpost during the APC guber primaries.

That is where the problem begins. In a state like Osun, the electorate is too sophisticated to be insulted in such a casual manner. To start with, this is an insult to every single person who contested for the APC governorship ticket, and it is a confirmation that the humiliation they received was deliberate.

Oyebamiji should advise himself, in his quiet time, that the Osun State governorship election is not APC primaries controlled by his godfather, Oyetola. I repeat, the Osun State governorship election is not APC primaries where you can simply announce that you have disqualified the best candidates.

You do not speak about an election like it is a training drill and expect the people to clap for your confidence. Osun voters do not like being spoken to as if their choice is automatic, and they do not like being reduced to a punchline. An election is not won by the comedy of contempt. It is won by persuasion, by presence, by performance, by the slow labour of convincing communities that your ambition is their interest.

When a candidate says he is facing an empty net, what he is really saying is that the people have no choice. That is not confidence, that is disrespect packaged as a sports metaphor. It is also political carelessness, because it turns the election into a referendum on arrogance. Pride has a way of creating its own opponent.

Oyebamiji’s language also exposes something deeper, a belief that victory is more about forces around politics than politics itself. In the same breath of bravado, he is quoted making claims that “all the governments across the world will stand with us,” as if elections are won by distant applause rather than local consent. That kind of talk may excite a room, but it insults the intelligence of the wider electorate. Osun people know what decides Osun elections. They know the difference between theatre and structure, between noise and numbers.

Oyebamiji is trying to create psychological inevitability, hoping that if he shouts victory loud enough, the state will begin to hear it as fate. But Osun is not a state that is easily hypnotised by inevitability. It is a state where people take their choices personally.

Osun elections do not reward men who treat the people like spectators to a match already fixed. In fact, Osun has a habit of resisting anyone who sounds like he is arriving to announce a conclusion rather than earn one. A candidate who trivialises the contest may end up trivialising the electorate, and when voters feel insulted, they do not argue. They respond. Quietly. Collectively. On election day.

Osun like leaders who remember that power is borrowed, not seized. In that sense, the most dangerous opponent Oyebamiji is facing may not be Adeleke at all. It may be the consequences of his own arrogance and words.

Pelumi Olajengbesi is an Osun State born Legal Practitioner.