Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Adegboyega Oyetola, said that the Peoples Democratic Party’s influence in Osun State has significantly diminished due to a wave of defections.
Oyetola, the former governor, made these remarks during a rally welcoming former PDP National Deputy Chairman, Shuaib Oyedokun, and former PDP gubernatorial aspirant, Dotun Babayemi, along with their supporters, into the APC fold.
He expressed optimism about the APC’s prospects in the upcoming gubernatorial election, citing Babayemi’s defection as a sign of more to come from the PDP before the 2026 polls.
He further said, “It is an irony that we lost an election over a year ago and there has been no major defection from the party. What we have is the reverse. It is the ruling party that is coming to us, which shows that APC remains a party to beat. We have done so well, and people are starting to see that when it comes to governance, the progressive knows how to.
“The way President Bola Tinubu has been governing us, that is what the APC governors in their respective states have been doing. I am delighted for the fact that we are not just getting anybody, but people of substance. Like Baba Suaibu, he is a veteran member of the PDP, decamping to the APC. It shows that PDP doesn’t exist any longer here.
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“I am confident that in 2026 we are going to take over the state. This is just the beginning because several people are willing to come back to us, and a lot of political heavyweights are coming to join us. I welcome Dotun Babayemi and Alhaji Suiabu Oyedokun to the progressives.”
However, Osun PDP chairman, Sunday Bisi described Babayemi and others’ defection into APC as “a drama by the opposition APC to shore up its bad fortunes in Osun State.
The party urged Osun people not to lose sleep over the “formal realignment of some political traders, whose round-tripping business of feeding fat on the common patrimony of the state was decisively halted through the July 16 2022 governorship election.
“The PDP believe the inglorious antecedents of the disillusioned dramatis personae involved in the soap opera of self-pleasuring are in public court. Such individuals like Mr Dotun Babayemi and his ilk have since been put in their place long before now and have ceased to be members of our party right before the 2022 governorship election.
“We,however,r understand that Osun PDP’s image stock is so huge that impressionists like Babayemi must cling onto it, deceiving themselves as decamping from the ruling party.”
