Singer Davido has dismissed activist Omoyele Sowore’s recent attacks on him and the Adeleke family as the product of lingering resentment from a brief encounter during the 2020 EndSARS protests in Abuja.
In a statement reacting to the exchange, Davido said: “Let me tell you why that one is angry. During endsars protest in Abuja, he came to me, me just moved away.. Since that day he has been bitter. Is that a serious person? He just likes attention. He will be okay.”
The comments followed Sowore’s public criticism of Davido and the family of Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke. Sowore, the African Action Congress presidential candidate, had described Adeleke as not being in effective control of the state, claiming decisions were instead made by Davido’s father and sister. He also alleged that Osun appeared “like it just fought a war” and that the governor “has nothing upstairs.”
Davido responded by calling Sowore an “imbecile.” Sowore later expanded on his remarks, asserting that Adeleke — who obtained a General Educational Development (GED) certificate after serving as a senator — was the real “Arindin.” He further claimed the Adeleke family used state resources to sustain an extravagant lifestyle and that Adeleke’s recent declaration of support for President Bola Tinubu was intended to secure reciprocal loyalty from the president’s supporters.
Background to the dispute includes longstanding questions about Adeleke’s educational credentials. In 2018 he faced accusations of submitting a forged high-school testimonial to the Independent National Electoral Commission. The document was dated 1988 — three years before Osun State was created — and claimed he sat the Senior School Certificate Examination in 1981, years before the exam was introduced. A second testimonial from the same principal, issued three decades later, was also presented. The principal was later arrested, but the case was dismissed for insufficient evidence. Adeleke subsequently obtained a GED diploma from Penn Foster High School in the United States in 2021.
In the weeks leading up to the Osun governorship election, Davido posted frequently on social media in support of his uncle. Between August 1 and mid-month he made 66 political posts that reached more than 84 million accounts, exceeding his combined output for June and July.
