Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke has secured a second term in office, defeating the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Munirudeen Bola Oyebamiji, by 66,252 votes in the 2026 governorship election.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Adeleke of the Accord Party the winner on Sunday after completing the collation of results from all 30 local government areas of the state.
Adeleke polled 511,067 votes, while Oyebamiji scored 444,815 votes. The African Democratic Congress (ADC) candidate, Najeem Salaam, came a distant third with 17,180 votes.
The election produced 985,079 valid votes, while 20,721 ballots were rejected, bringing the total votes cast to 1,005,800.
Of the 2,339,544 registered voters in the state, 1,010,684 were accredited, representing a turnout of about 43.2 per cent.
The declaration ended days of tension surrounding the election, including delays in the electronic transmission of results, intermittent visibility of results on INEC’s Result Viewing Portal, and allegations of electoral irregularities by political parties and their supporters.
Adeleke won 19 of the 30 LGAs, including several of his traditional strongholds and major population centres such as Ede, Osogbo, Ilesa, and Iwo.
Oyebamiji won 11 LGAs but was unable to overcome the margins accumulated by Adeleke in the more populous urban centres.
The 66,252-vote margin underscored the scale of Adeleke’s victory in a contest that had been projected as a close battle between the ruling Accord Party and the APC.
The outcome also represents a major setback for the APC, which had openly described Osun as a must-win state ahead of the 2027 general elections.
The party mobilised substantial political firepower for the campaign, with National Chairman Nentawe Yilwatda describing the election as a “must-win.”
A 276-member campaign council headed by Imo State Governor Hope Uzodimma was deployed to the state, while Senate President Godswill Akpabio, Speaker of the House of Representatives Tajudeen Abbas, former Osun Governor and Minister Adegboyega Oyetola, as well as several APC governors, participated in the party’s campaign activities, including its mega rally in Osogbo.
Despite the high-powered mobilisation, the APC was unable to dislodge Adeleke, who turned the contest into a decisive victory.
A political analyst in Osogbo described the result as a referendum on the governor’s performance rather than merely a contest between party structures.
According to the analyst, “Osun people voted for continuity.”
Celebrations broke out in several parts of the state as news of the governor’s victory spread, with particularly large gatherings reported in Ede, Adeleke’s hometown. Supporters danced through the streets chanting “Imole ti de” as they celebrated the governor’s renewed mandate.
Adeleke, who defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the Accord Party earlier in the year, had campaigned on his administration’s welfare initiatives, infrastructure projects and grassroots empowerment programmes.
The governor had sought to make the election a referendum on his administration’s record during its first term.
With the collation of results from all 30 LGAs completed, Adeleke is expected to receive his Certificate of Return from INEC, formally confirming his mandate for another four years.
The defeat is likely to trigger fresh questions within the APC over its strategy for the 2027 elections, particularly in states where the party intends to deploy federal power and national political structures to challenge incumbent opposition governors.
The inability of the APC to convert its extensive mobilisation and high-profile campaign into victory in Osun is expected to fuel debate over the effectiveness of the party’s electoral strategy and its appeal at the grassroots.
For Adeleke, however, the immediate political verdict is unequivocal: he has waltzed back to the Osun State Government House for another four years.
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