Lukman Abdulmalik
Governor Ademola Adeleke has secured a second term in Osun State, four years after his first electoral victory and after another closely fought contest with the All Progressives Congress (APC).
This time, Adeleke successfully defended his seat on the Accord Party platform, defeating the APC candidate, Bola Oyebamiji, in a contest shaped by strong regional voting patterns, turnout and the distribution of votes across the state’s 30 local government areas.
By the numbers
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Adeleke the winner after he polled 511,067 votes, representing 50.8 per cent of the 1,005,800 votes cast.
Oyebamiji, a former Osun Commissioner for Finance, finished second with 444,815 votes, or 44.2 per cent.
The African Democratic Congress candidate, Najeem Salaam, came a distant third with 17,180 votes, while the remaining candidates shared the balance of the votes.
About 20,721 ballots, representing roughly 2 per cent of the total votes cast, were rejected.
Adeleke’s victory margin was 66,252 votes, giving him a clear advantage despite the contest being considerably tighter than the 2022 election.
In 2022, Adeleke defeated then-incumbent APC governor Gboyega Oyetola after securing more than 400,000 votes against Oyetola’s roughly 375,000.
19 LGAs against 11
The geographical spread of the votes offers another explanation for Adeleke’s victory.
Results from the state’s 30 local government areas showed the Accord candidate winning 19 LGAs, while Oyebamiji carried 11.
The raw number of LGAs won, however, does not fully explain the outcome. The decisive factor was the size of the margins in those areas.
Adeleke recorded particularly strong performances in his traditional strongholds, including Ede North and Ede South, where large vote margins helped him accumulate a statewide lead that the APC could not erase in its own areas of strength.
The result demonstrated how Nigeria’s first-past-the-post governorship system can turn the concentration of votes in strategic areas into a statewide advantage.
The political symbolism
Some of the most notable results came from polling units associated with prominent political figures.
At the Government House polling unit in Osogbo, where Adeleke narrowly defeated Oyetola by 11 votes in 2022, the governor again won, this time expanding his margin to 39 votes.
The APC, however, retained some of its traditional strongholds.
At a polling unit associated with former governor Rauf Aregbesola in Ilesa, Oyebamiji secured a decisive 256 votes, compared with Adeleke’s 43.
The contrasting results illustrated the wider pattern of the election: the APC remained competitive in several of its established bases, but Adeleke’s stronger performance across other parts of the state ultimately gave him the statewide edge.
More voters, modestly higher turnout
The election was conducted against the backdrop of a growing voter register.
More than 2.3 million voters were registered in Osun, the highest number recorded for a governorship election in the state. About 81.5 per cent of registered voters had collected their Permanent Voter Cards.
Turnout increased modestly compared with 2022, although a significant proportion of registered voters still did not participate.
The election was largely peaceful in many areas, but monitors and journalists reported allegations of vote-buying and intimidation in some parts of the state.
A different route to victory
Perhaps the most significant feature of Adeleke’s victory was the platform on which he achieved it.
After leaving the Peoples Democratic Party, the platform on which he won in 2022, Adeleke contested the 2026 election under the Accord Party.
The PDP and Labour Party did not field candidates in the election, leaving Adeleke and Oyebamiji to dominate a contest involving 15 political parties.
Despite the change of platform, Adeleke retained enough of his political coalition to secure a second term.
What the numbers mean
Adeleke’s victory represents another setback for the APC’s efforts to reclaim Osun, a state where the party has remained a formidable force.
The defeat is particularly significant because the APC entered the election with the advantage of controlling the federal government and the political influence that comes with it.
Yet the final figures show that federal backing did not translate into enough votes to overcome Adeleke’s statewide coalition.
For Adeleke, the 511,067 votes are more than a second-term mandate. They provide numerical backing for the political identity he cultivated during the campaign as the “Bulldozer” — a candidate capable of overcoming formidable opposition and converting strong local support into a statewide victory.
The election also showed that Osun remains deeply competitive. The APC’s 444,815 votes demonstrate that the party retains a substantial electoral base and could remain a major force in the state’s next political contest.
Ultimately, the 2026 election was decided not simply by who won more local government areas, but by where the votes came from, how large the margins were and how efficiently each candidate converted strongholds into statewide numbers.
With Adeleke’s re-election, the “Bulldozer” has secured another four years in Osun — this time with the arithmetic of 511,067 votes to 444,815 firmly behind him.
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