By Decisionmakers Media Ltd
Iyiola Omisore’s quiet walk out of the All Progressives Congress to back Governor Ademola Adeleke of the Peoples Democratic Party is not just another defection. In Osun’s knife-edge politics, it reads like a man testing the depth of the river with both feet. The question now is simple: who is committing political harakiri, Omisore or the APC?
Senator Iyiola Omisore is no political lightweight. He is a former deputy governor, a former PDP governorship candidate, and until recently, the National Secretary of the APC. He was the architect of the 2018 rerun deal that handed Gboyega Oyetola the governorship on a platter. In 2022, he was Oyetola’s chief defender against Adeleke’s political insurgency. His exit now to openly support Adeleke, the same man he fought bitterly, is a reversal that strips the APC of its most experienced Osun bridge-builder. Omisore’s calculation is raw. Adeleke is the incumbent, controls state resources, and has shown surprising staying power after the Supreme Court affirmed him. Aligning early with Adeleke before 2026 signals that Omisore wants a seat at the table when patronage is shared, not when it is fought over. He is betting that Adeleke’s access to federal allocation and the governor’s grassroots affection outweigh APC’s Abuja connections.
For the APC, losing Omisore looks like political harakiri, a form of ritual suicide. The party sacked him as National Secretary in 2023 amid the Abdullahi Adamu fallout, and that humiliation was never healed. Osun APC then doubled down, rallying around Oyetola’s Minister of Marine and Blue Economy portfolio and treating Omisore as expendable. They forgot the 2018 lesson that you do not win Osun without Ife. Omisore is Ife. He delivered the Ife and Ijesa axis that gave APC the rerun victory. By pushing him out, the party cut off its eastern flank. The APC is now left with Oyetola’s Iragbiji base and a handful of federal appointees, but no organic political general on the ground. In a state where elections are won by thirty thousand votes, losing a man who can swing fifty thousand is not strategy. It is self-harm. The immediate implication is that the APC’s 2026 governorship primary becomes a narrower and weaker affair. Without Omisore, there is no serious challenger to Oyetola if he runs again, and that breeds complacency. It also tells every other aggrieved APC chieftain that the exit door is open and the PDP is willing to receive them.
But harakiri cuts both ways, and Omisore may have walked into his own blade. If Adeleke wins re-election in 2026, Omisore becomes a statesman. He will claim he saw the tide early, positioned Ife correctly, and earned a right to nominate commissioners, board members, and local government chairs. He becomes the de facto APC to PDP bridge, the man Tinubu must call to negotiate Osun. His political rehabilitation would be complete. If Adeleke loses, Omisore is finished. He will be the man who betrayed the APC and then failed to deliver for the PDP. President Tinubu does not forgive political freelancers who back losers. The PDP will also discard him as an APC mole. He becomes a politician with no home, no base, and no future. At sixty-six, there is no comeback from that kind of collapse.
The price of this move will be paid in 2026, but the bill is being written now. If the APC loses Osun in 2026, then the party committed harakiri. It would mean the party expelled a general before the war, ignored grassroots arithmetic, and assumed that federal might replaces local structure. The price is losing a Southwest state, embarrassing Oyetola for a second time, and weakening Tinubu’s home-zone control ahead of 2027. If the APC wins Osun in 2026 without Omisore, then Omisore committed harakiri. He will be remembered as the man who misread Adeleke’s strength, jumped ship too early, and ended a twenty-five-year career as a political footnote. There is also a third scenario that may be the most likely. Adeleke could win and then sideline Omisore. Governors use defectors, then dump them. Adeleke already has his own structure, his brother Deji’s financial muscle, and the cultural megaphone of Davido. He does not need Omisore after victory. In that case, both the APC and Omisore bleed. The APC loses the election and looks incompetent. Omisore loses the election’s spoils and looks naive. That would be double harakiri.
This entire episode exposes Tinubu’s Osun problem. The president’s path to 2027 needs the Southwest intact. Losing Osun in 2022 was a personal slight. Failing to reclaim it in 2026 because the party chased out its Ife warlord would be strategic malpractice. Omisore’s exit tests whether the APC is a party of structures or a party of Abuja appointments. Right now, Abuja is losing. The recent traditional rulers meeting in Dutse showed Tinubu knows he needs local influencers. Yet in Osun, he just lost one. You cannot preach collaboration with grassroots leaders in Jigawa while ignoring it in Ife.Omisore has placed his bet that Adeleke’s incumbency beats APC’s machinery. The APC has placed its bet that Oyetola’s ministerial title and federal backing beat Omisore’s local network. One of them has committed political harakiri. The knife is already in. We wait to see who twists it. The price will be paid at the ballot box in 2026. The currency is not just Osun Government House. It is Tinubu’s 2027 electoral map, and Iyiola Omisore’s political obituary.
