Challenges Okpebholo to publish his own record as revenue, debt, education data reshape campaign battle
Edo State Governor, Monday Okpebholo, may have intended to turn Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke’s dancing into a campaign weapon, but the jibe has instead opened a fresh battle over governance records, with Adeleke’s defender challenging the Edo governor to produce his own scorecard.
Okpebholo, who was campaigning for the All Progressives Congress governorship candidate in Osun State, Bola Oyebamiji, repeatedly mocked Adeleke as a “dancing governor” and accused him of paying insufficient attention to governance.
But Paul Nosa Ogiehor, who said he was not speaking on behalf of Adeleke, fired back with a lengthy presentation of economic, fiscal, educational and social indicators which he said offered a more meaningful basis for judging the Osun administration.
Ogiehor said he released the figures “for the sake of public sanity”, warning against allowing what he described as “half-cooked and lazy commentaries” to dominate the election debate.
His central challenge was blunt: if Adeleke should be judged by his record in office, then the record—not his dancing—should be put on trial.
According to figures cited by Ogiehor from publicly available data attributed to the National Bureau of Statistics, World Bank, Debt Management Office and BudgIT, Osun’s internally generated revenue reportedly climbed from ₦27.7bn to ₦54.7bn in 2024, representing a 97.3 per cent increase.
He attributed the rise to tax harmonisation, digitalisation and efforts to plug revenue leakages rather than imposing additional burdens on residents.
Ogiehor further claimed that Osun had reduced its debt by more than 45 per cent, ranking third among Nigeria’s 36 states in debt reduction, while avoiding fresh borrowing for current projects.
On fiscal transparency, he cited BudgIT’s Q3 2025 State Fiscal Transparency League, where Osun reportedly recorded a 100 per cent score and ranked first.
The claims extended to workers and pensioners.
Ogiehor said the Adeleke administration had cleared salary and pension arrears dating back to January 2016 and paid ₦4.3bn in pensioners’ gratuities between December 2022 and the period under review.
He also claimed that about 29,000 pensioners had been enrolled in the Osun Health Insurance Scheme.
Education, another major campaign battleground, also featured prominently in the counterattack.
According to Ogiehor, Osun moved from 33rd nationally in examination performance in 2022 to seventh position, while 99 secondary schools had reportedly been rehabilitated and six technical colleges restarted.
He also pointed to the state’s domestication of the Nigeria Startup Act, completion of Google mapping across Osun and the development of an e-procurement portal which he said BudgIT had recognised as a transparency model.
On poverty, Ogiehor cited NBS figures putting Osun’s poverty rate at 8.52 per cent, describing it as the third-lowest in the country.
He further invoked World Bank data which, he claimed, showed a significant reduction in Osun’s infrastructure deficit, alongside improvements in other socioeconomic indicators.
But the intervention comes with an important caveat: the figures were presented by Ogiehor as a defence of Adeleke’s administration and a challenge to the political narrative surrounding the governor, rather than as an independent audit of the state government’s performance.
The controversy was triggered by Okpebholo’s appearance at an APC campaign rally in Osun, where the Edo governor urged voters to reject Adeleke’s administration and support Oyebamiji.
Okpebholo also advised voters to accept money allegedly offered by rival political parties but vote for the APC candidate.
“If they bring money, chop that money from them but don’t vote for them,” he said.
He accused Adeleke of failing to attend governors’ meetings regularly because of alleged late arrival and also linked him politically with former Edo Governor Godwin Obaseki.
The Edo governor urged Osun voters to back Oyebamiji, whom he presented as the candidate capable of delivering better roads, schools and economic development.
He also questioned how resources made available to states by the Federal Government had been utilised in Osun.
But what began as a personality attack has now evolved into a potentially uncomfortable question of comparative performance.
The political argument is no longer simply about whether Adeleke dances at public functions.
It is increasingly about whether Osun’s reported revenue growth, debt reduction, fiscal transparency, education gains, pension payments and other indicators withstand scrutiny.
And that has produced a question for both sides.
If Adeleke’s dancing is evidence of poor governance, where is Okpebholo’s measurable scorecard?
Conversely, if the figures cited in Adeleke’s defence are inaccurate or misleading, can the APC produce the data to disprove them?
For a governorship contest increasingly shaped by personality, spectacle and political rhetoric, the next phase may be decided by something less entertaining—but far more consequential: the numbers.