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By Idowu Gabriel<\/p>\n
Factional National Chairman of the Accord Party, Prof. Chris Imumolen, says President Bola Tinubu\u2019s conduct, restraint, and democratic disposition contributed significantly to Governor Ademola Adeleke\u2019s victory in the Osun governorship election.<\/p>\n
Imumolen stated this in a statement issued on Sunday in Abuja while reacting to comments made by Pelumi Olajengbesi, spokesperson for Governor Adeleke\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n
Olajengbesi had stated in an interview published by a national newspaper that President Tinubu offered no support whatsoever to Adeleke’s re-election, attributing the victory solely to the voters of Osun and Adeleke\u2019s record in office.<\/p>\n
Responding to the claim, Imumolen said the campaign spokesperson\u2019s assertion deliberately reduced President Tinubu\u2019s role to whether he openly campaigned or deployed federal power for Adeleke.<\/p>\n
\u201cSupport in politics is not limited to standing on a campaign platform or openly mobilising votes for a candidate,\u201d Imumolen said. \u201cSometimes, leadership is demonstrated by what a leader deliberately refuses to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Imumolen said that President Tinubu demonstrated an extraordinary level of democratic restraint in Osun, by remaining neutral even when the candidate of his own party was contesting the election.<\/p>\n
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\u201cHe did not turn the election into a personal battle. He did not deploy the power of his office to intimidate the opposition. Instead, he allowed the people of Osun to make their choice.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThat, in itself, is a significant contribution to the credibility of the electoral process,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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Imumolen further argued that President Tinubu\u2019s conduct created the political space within which several individuals and groups who might otherwise have remained neutral or supported the APC candidate were able to make independent decisions.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He cited what he described as the President\u2019s intervention in relation to the Osun State Government\u2019s account, as well as his reported communication with Adeleke before the election result was announced.<\/p>\n
This according to him is examples of a president who chose statesmanship and democratic maturity over partisan retaliation.<\/p>\n
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\u201cImagine what would have happened if the President had decided to use every available instrument at his disposal against Adeleke simply because the Governor was contesting against the President\u2019s party.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead, the President maintained his democratic disposition. He allowed traditional rulers, political actors, stakeholders and ordinary citizens to exercise their judgment without the atmosphere of federal intimidation that could have accompanied such a contest.<\/p>\n
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\u201cMany people who eventually engaged in the political process did so because they saw a President who was prepared to respect the democratic choice of the people, even when that choice did not favour his party,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The former presidential candidate stressed that this should not be interpreted as claiming that President Tinubu campaigned for Adeleke or financed his campaign.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody is saying President Tinubu campaigned for Adeleke. That is not the argument.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe point is that the president\u2019s conduct, restraint and democratic disposition contributed to an environment in which Adeleke was able to contest and secure support without the Federal Government turning the election into a presidential power contest,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Imumolen said it was therefore misleading for anyone to reduce the President\u2019s role to the question of whether he personally offered campaign materials, funds or political structures to Adeleke.<\/p>\n
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He added that President Tinubu\u2019s decision to remain above the fray was particularly remarkable because the APC candidate, Bola Oyebamiji, was the candidate of the President\u2019s own political party.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt is rare in contemporary African politics to see a sitting President demonstrate such restraint when his own party is involved in a fiercely contested state election.\u201d<\/p>\n
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According to Imumolen, political leaders should learn to distinguish between partisan support and democratic statesmanship.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cThe president may not have offered Adeleke the conventional campaign support being referred to by the campaign spokesperson, but his actions and restraint helped preserve the political space within which the election took place.<\/p>\n
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\u201cTo therefore come out after the election and declare that the President offered \u2018no support\u2019 is, in my view, an attempt to erase the value of his democratic conduct.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cLeadership is not only about what you do for your friends. Sometimes, it is about what you refuse to do to your opponents.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Imumolen therefore advised Adeleke and his supporters to acknowledge the president\u2019s democratic disposition rather than dismiss it.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cAdeleke may have won because of the votes he received from Osun people, but nobody should rewrite the circumstances under which those votes were allowed to freely determine the outcome.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cPresident Tinubu could have chosen confrontation. He chose restraint. He could have chosen partisan warfare. He chose democracy.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThat should be acknowledged, not denied.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Imumolen concluded that political victory should not become an excuse for historical revisionism, stressing that gratitude and political honesty are essential qualities in leadership.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cVictory should make a leader magnanimous, not revisionist. The President respected the democratic process in Osun. That fact should not be diminished simply because Adeleke emerged victorious,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Factional National Chairman of the Accord Party, Prof. Chris Imumolen, says President Bola Tinubu\u2019s conduct, restraint, and democratic disposition contributed significantly to Governor Ademola Adeleke\u2019s victory in the Osun governorship election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":741,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[56,211,360,26],"class_list":["post-740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-democracy","tag-osun","tag-support","tag-tinubu"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Imumolen-.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=740"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":742,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740\/revisions\/742"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}