The romance between Governor Ademola Adeleke and the late Olalekan Oyeyemi, alias Emir Ajagungbade, was never a secret in Osun politics. It was an open, celebrated alliance that has now ended in blood at Mayfair Motor Park, Ile-Ife on September 13, 2026, exposing the rot at the heart of the state’s transport politics.
Emir was more than a transport union leader. He was a political mobilizer, a transition committee member for Adeleke, and the governor’s known ally. Yet his resume was a catalogue of violence. Declared wanted in July 2022 for alleged murder, armed robbery and cultism. Arraigned in 2024 on charges of terrorism, conspiracy and unlawful killing. Granted bail in April 2024, remanded again in November 2024 for murder. This is the man the government was reportedly preparing to install as state chairman of the transport management system, the very appointment that triggered the fatal factional clash that killed him and one other person.
This romance explains the spate of crimes in Osun. When a governor chooses to wine and dine with a figure facing terrorism charges, elevates him as a political asset, and empowers his faction to control motor parks, he institutionalizes thuggery as governance. Motor parks become war zones, not revenue centers. Factions become armed militias, not unions.
What makes the romance more questionable is the aftermath. After years of using Emir’s network for political advantage, Governor Adeleke now postures as the chief law enforcer, proscribing NURTW, banning park activities, ordering arrests, and blaming the opposition. He cannot have it both ways. You cannot breed, feed and celebrate a monster for electoral gain and then pretend to be shocked when it devours the city. The sporadic gunfire in Ile-Ife after the killing, the second corpse recovered by police, are not opposition plots. They are the dividends of a government that outsourced its grassroots mobilization to thugs.
The most wicked impact of this romance is on the youth of Osun. While his own children are protected abroad, shielded in comfort and good schools far from the violence of Mayfair and Olaiya, the governor is exposing Osun youths to thuggery as a career path. Instead of laying a good example and providing jobs, skills and hope, he presents the Emir model as success: that wielding a gun in a motor park, mobilizing for a politician, and controlling a garage is more rewarding than education or enterprise. In Nigeria where unemployment is crushing, this is wickedness of the highest order. A failed governor who cannot provide jobs should at least not recruit young men into a life of cultism, armed robbery and murder charges. He is mortgaging the future of thousands of Osun youths to secure his political present, while his own household is insulated from the consequences.
Show me your friends and I will tell you who you are. Adeleke’s friendship with Emir Ajagungbade tells us everything about the moral standing of this administration. A governor who keeps company with wanted persons, who rewards criminal notoriety with state recognition, has lost the moral authority to condemn crime. He should be held responsible for the insecurity he cultivated. The Mayfair killing is not an accident. It is the inevitable end of a questionable romance between power and thuggery.
