A leading governorship aspirant of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Osun State, Omooba Dotun Babayemi, has raised alarm over what he described as the “shameless exploitation” of Osun’s mineral wealth, especially gold, by private interests while rural dwellers, who bear the brunt of the operations, live in worsening poverty.

Speaking to reporters after he submitted his expression of interest and nomination forms at the national secretariat of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Abuja yesterday, Babayemi said his findings reveal a stark contradiction between the state’s enormous natural resource potential and the crippling neglect of its rural communities.

“Osun sits on one of the richest ends of Nigeria’s gold belt. We have about 75,000 miners operating today, yet the state gets zero value. Everything goes into private pockets. Nothing comes to government. Nothing comes to the host communities,” he said.

Babayemi, who toured 299 out of Osun’s 332 wards, described the mining environment as chaotic, unregulated and exploitative, adding that the people in rural areas where the mineral is extracted “remain in darkness, poverty and abandonment.”

Babayemi explained that his ward-to-ward tour exposed what he called “a humanitarian and economic crisis,” adding that over 65% of Osun’s population are farmers, yet they are unable to transport produce from farm to market because of collapsed rural infrastructure.

“We travelled over 120 kilometres inside Osun. People still move by bicycle and on foot. Roads are gone. Bridges have collapsed. Farmers watch their produce rot because they cannot move it,” he said.

He argued that a government truly concerned about citizens’ welfare would prioritise rural infrastructure, agricultural access roads and community development—yet none of these exist today.

Babayemi accused the current government of focusing exclusively on urban areas while leaving the rural population—who form the backbone of Osun’s economy—to fend for themselves.

“Rural Osun has been abandoned. The government is only present in urban centres. Meanwhile, the rural areas that produce the food, the labour and the natural resources are ignored.”

He added that this imbalance explains the rising migration from rural areas to already overstretched urban centres.

Describing Osun as “a state of wealth without prosperity,” Babayemi said the tragedy is not lack of resources but the lack of governance and accountability.

“Osun should be the powerhouse of the South-West. Instead, powerful individuals are hijacking our gold, draining our resources and impoverishing our rural people. This must stop.”

If elected, he said his administration would immediately regulate mining and ensure revenue flows to government and host communities, rebuild rural access roads to connect farmers to markets, return economic opportunities to rural dwellers, build a consultative forum that permanently links rural and urban Osun, and ensure youths acquire essential skills to participate in the new economy.

He insisted that development must begin from rural areas if Osun is ever to unlock its true potential.

“The people in our rural communities are the engine of Osun’s economy. Once we reconnect them, reform the mining sector, and open up access roads, the entire state will rise again,” he stressed.