Isiaka Oyetola
Isiaka Gboyega Oyetola was on Friday declared winner of the Osun All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship primary.
Oyetola, who is the chief of staff to Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State and the cousin of Bola Tinubu, National Leader of the party, emerged winner of the party’s first-ever direct primary by polling 127, 017 votes to beat Yusuff Lasun, Deputy Speaker of the House of representatives, who recorded 21, 975 votes to place a distant second.
Najeem Salam, Speaker of the Osun State House of Assembly, occupied third place with 17, 958 votes.
Before the start of Friday’s primary, Moshood Adeoti, Secretary to the Osun State Government, had accused the party of manipulating the exercise, saying a lot of things were done to render it a mere endorsement Oyetola.
“The primary was arranged, skewed and designed to favour Alhaji Isiaka Gboyega Otedola, the cousin of the National Leader of our party, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu,” Adeoti’s campaign organization said in a statement.
He alleged that there was no credible register of members with which a free, fair and transparent direct primary could be conducted, but only a “cooked-up register comprising handpicked persons loyal to the emergence of Oyetola, printed in a firm owned by Oyetola in Lagos”.