Follow Us on Google
Women and youths in Osun State are awaiting a public commitment from Governor Ademola Adeleke to their development priorities, with the AdvoKC Foundation accusing the governor of repeatedly ignoring requests to endorse their manifesto.
The foundation said Adeleke had, in the past two months, received four copies of the Osun Women and Youth Manifesto, titled “The Osun We Deserve,” as well as a formal letter and requests through meetings with members of his administration, but had yet to give a definite response.
The Communications Manager of AdvoKC Foundation, Luqman Adamu, disclosed this in a statement, noting that candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and African Democratic Congress (ADC) contesting the 2027 governorship election had already signed the manifesto.
According to the foundation, the manifesto was developed from data gathered across all 30 local government areas of the state, involving 1,972 respondents, 65 per cent of whom were women, mostly between 18 and 35 years.
It said the exercise identified citizens’ major concerns as road infrastructure, reliable electricity, clean water, youth employment, drainage and flood control, waste management, women- and youth-specific development needs and functional healthcare.
The manifesto subsequently outlines a four-year governance agenda, covering the first 100 days of the next administration through 2030.
Adamu said the document was designed to give political leaders a clear picture of what citizens wanted rather than leave them guessing about their priorities.
“It was put together so that leadership does not have to guess what its citizens want, it only has to say yes or no. Governor Adeleke has said neither. He has simply gone quiet,” he said.
He said a formal letter, accompanied by two copies of the manifesto, was delivered to Adeleke’s office in June 2026, after which advocates held several meetings with members of the governor’s camp seeking a response.
According to him, two additional copies of the manifesto were subsequently delivered to the governor’s office in further attempts to secure his commitment.
Adamu said the response from the governor’s camp had consistently been that Adeleke was too busy to attend to the request.
“At every stage, the answer has not been ‘no.’ It has been silence, dressed up as a scheduling problem,” he said.
The foundation contrasted Adeleke’s silence with the decision of the APC and ADC governorship candidates to endorse the demands contained in the manifesto.
“No governor of a state as large as Osun has an empty diary. Every governor is busy. The question a manifesto like this puts to power is never ‘do you have time,’ but ‘what do you have time for,’” Adamu said.
He said the foundation’s demand remained unchanged: that Adeleke should publicly and in writing commit to the Women and Youth Manifesto, just as the other candidates had done.
“Osun’s women and youth are not asking for a favour. They are asking their governor to say, clearly, whether their priorities are his,” he said.
The foundation said Adeleke’s continued silence was itself an answer, but one that women and youths in the state were not expecting.
It, therefore, urged the governor to make his position known publicly, saying that until he does so, “too busy” would remain the only response received from his administration.
