Win a second term — Bisi Akande

Development

Deliver the AD 'progressive' programme in a first term

Partial

The promise

To provide free education and free medical care and improve basic services, the Alliance for Democracy platform Akande ran on in 1999.

Assessment

A November 2001 assessment credited Akande with implementing free education and free medical care and improving water supply. A competing January 2002 appraisal described large public-service lay-offs — including 143 broadcasting-corporation staff dismissed in January 2000 — and deteriorating infrastructure. The record is genuinely contested.

Governance

Run Osun State's finances frugally

Kept

The promise

To manage a small state's money conservatively rather than expansively.

Assessment

Akande built and retained a reputation for personal and fiscal austerity as governor; no corruption case followed his tenure. Critics argued the frugality tipped into under-investment and staff cuts.

Governance

Win a second term

Broken

The promise

Implicit in seeking re-election in 2003.

Assessment

Akande had won the 9 January 1999 election overwhelmingly, with 68.47% of the vote (295,557 votes) against the APP's 31.53% (136,105). In April 2003 he lost to Olagunsoye Oyinlola of the PDP, part of a sweep that took every South-West state except Lagos from the AD. He went on to chair the AD, then the Action Congress and ACN, for eleven years, and became founding interim National Chairman of the APC in 2013.