The wait is still on to determine who becomes the next governor of the Osun State. Nigeria has some 36 States so why has this particular election in the state of Osun become so important?

Nigeria, the most populous black nation in the world, has struggled to live up to its potential despite having abundant resources. The country produces some 1.5 million barrels of crude oil daily. Most of the money however ends up in the pockets of just elite few. The World Bank estimates 53.5 percent of the country’s 180 million people live under the poverty line.

As Nigerians prepare for the polls early next year, analysts believe that the polls at Osun will mimick the outcome of the country’s presidential elections. Already, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has given the strong indication that the incumbent president General Muhammadu Buhari will be the party’s flagbearer. The biggest opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) is locked up in negotiations to come up with the best strategy to select their presidential candidate. The process has the potential to cause breakup in the already frail-looking party that ruled Nigeria for 16 years.

Election watchers are betting that the trend at this particular election will be reflected in next year’s polls. PDP’s Ademola Adeleke remains the favorite to win. He won last week’s contest with some 353 votes ahead of APC’s Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola.

The rerun has become necessary because the country’s electoral body, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), ruled that since the difference between the two front runners in the poll is so close, there is the need to rerun the polls in places where the polls were either cancelled or disrupted due to violence.

With the two parties neck-in-neck in this race, there may be an unlikely kingmaker – Iyiola Ajani Omisore. He was third in last week’s poll and managed more than 120,000 votes in a race which was previously seen as a straight contest between the APC and PDP.

Omisore has just announced his support for APC’s Oyetola and has subsequently urged his followers to vote for the governing party’s candidate.

Source: Street News

https://streetnewsgh..com/2018/09/why-osun-poll-matters.html

Adeleke and his crew seem to be psyching their followers for defeat. That is not a good strategy