Governor Ademola Adeleke of the Accord Party has secured a second term as Governor of Osun State after winning Saturday’s governorship election with 511,067 votes.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Adeleke the winner in the early hours of Sunday, August 16, after the collation of results from all 30 local government areas of the state.
Adeleke defeated his closest challenger, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Bola Oyebamiji, who polled 444,815 votes.
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) candidate, Najeem Salaam, finished a distant third with 17,180 votes.
The result gives Adeleke a winning margin of 66,252 votes over Oyebamiji.
The election’s State Returning Officer, Professor Joshua Olalekan Ogunwole, Vice-Chancellor of the Federal University, Oye-Ekiti, announced Adeleke as the winner after the completion of the collation exercise.
Reports indicate that Adeleke won 19 of the state’s 30 LGAs, while Oyebamiji secured victory in 11 local government areas.
The victory represents a fresh electoral mandate for Adeleke, who first won the Osun governorship in 2022. He has now successfully defended his position in a contest that pitted him against the APC’s Oyebamiji and ADC’s Salaam.
Adeleke’s victory was particularly significant because he contested the 2026 election on the platform of the Accord Party, having moved away from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), under which he won his first term in 2022.
Adeleke had expressed confidence before voting
Speaking shortly after casting his ballot at Sagba Abogunde Ward 2, Unit 9, in Ede North Local Government Area on Saturday, Adeleke had expressed confidence that he would emerge victorious.
The governor urged voters to protect their ballots and remain at their polling units to monitor the process in line with INEC guidelines.
He also appealed for a peaceful election, saying the people of Osun had the opportunity to decide who would govern the state for the next four years.
The governor, however, had raised concerns over alleged attempts to intimidate some of his supporters in parts of the state and called on the Inspector-General of Police to investigate the allegations.
Despite the political tension that preceded the poll, the election proceeded across the state’s 30 LGAs, with security agencies deployed to maintain order.
Adeleke’s victory comes amid tight political contest
The 2026 election was closely watched as one of Nigeria’s major off-cycle governorship contests leading up to the 2027 general elections.
The APC entered the election seeking to reclaim Osun from Adeleke, while the ADC presented Salaam as a third-force candidate.
Adeleke’s eventual 66,252-vote advantage gives him a significantly wider margin than the gap by which he won the 2022 election, when he defeated then-incumbent Gboyega Oyetola of the APC with 403,371 votes against Oyetola’s 375,027.
With the final results now declared, attention is expected to shift towards the transition into Adeleke’s second term and the political implications of the outcome for Osun and the wider South-West ahead of the 2027 elections.
The election also leaves the APC facing fresh questions about its strategy in Osun, after Oyebamiji secured 11 LGAs but failed to overcome Adeleke’s statewide vote advantage.
