The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has declared incumbent governor Ademola Adeleke of the Accord Party winner of the 2026 Osun State governorship election.
Adeleke polled 511,067 votes to defeat his closest challenger, Bola Oyebamiji of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who scored 444,815 votes, a winning margin of 66,252 votes.
Returning Officer Professor Joshua Olalekan Ogunwole, Vice-Chancellor of the Federal University, Oye-Ekiti, announced the result at the INEC Collation Centre in Osogbo on Sunday morning, after overnight collation of results from the state’s 30 local government areas.
Najeem Salaam of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) finished third with 17,180 votes, while 12 other candidates shared the remainder of the 985,097 valid votes cast out of 2,339,544 registered voters.
The election marks Adeleke’s second consecutive governorship win in Osun, having first taken office in 2022 on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) after defeating then-incumbent Gboyega Oyetola of the APC.
He later defected to the Accord Party ahead of Saturday’s contest, meaning the party now holds the Osun governorship for the first time in its history.
INEC said 1,010,684 of the state’s registered voters were accredited on election day, with 985,097 valid votes cast, 20,721 rejected votes, and 1,005,800 total ballots recorded.
The commission also confirmed that 98.19% of the 3,763 expected polling unit results had been uploaded to its Result Viewing Portal (IReV), a platform introduced to let voters and observers track polling unit-level results in real time as collation progresses.
The contest took place against a tense backdrop, coming days after the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) froze an Osun State Government account, a move Adeleke’s camp had condemned as an attempt to disrupt his campaign.
A resident in Osogbo, Taiwo Oloyede, credited Tinubu’s intervention in that dispute as one factor behind the smooth conduct of the poll.
Adeleke Thanks Tinubu, Says He Expects A Call From Oyebamiji
Reacting to his victory, Adeleke said President Bola Tinubu called to congratulate him even before INEC’s formal declaration.
“I want to seize this opportunity to thank Mr. President. He has called me and he has congratulated me. Thank you Mr. President for making sure democracy lives on because you fought for it,” he said.
The governor described his re-election as a victory for democracy and the people of Osun, and said he expected Oyebamiji to reach out and congratulate him, adding that for him, “it’s no victor, no vanquished.”
How Ede And Osogbo Delivered Adeleke’s Winning Margin
Adeleke won 19 of the state’s 30 local government areas, while Oyebamiji secured 11, but the size of the margins in each candidate’s strongholds, not just the number of councils won, decided the contest.
The clearest example came from the Ede axis, where Adeleke polled 35,427 votes against Oyebamiji’s 10,283 in Ede North, and 26,188 against 6,219 in Ede South, giving the governor a combined 45,113-vote advantage from just two councils.
The state capital, Osogbo, added further cushion, with Adeleke polling 36,480 votes against Oyebamiji’s 30,474, a margin of 6,006 votes in an urban centre where the APC also had considerable support.
Across the four Ife council areas, Adeleke’s combined 75,758 votes outpaced Oyebamiji’s 58,804, adding another 16,954 votes to his lead, while further wins in Egbedore, Iwo and Oriade added a combined 21,989-vote cushion.
APC Remained A Formidable Force Despite The Defeat
Oyebamiji’s strongest showing came in Irewole, where he polled 29,972 votes against Adeleke’s 10,934, a 19,038-vote margin, the single largest swing recorded by either candidate in any local government.
The APC candidate also won Boripe, Irepodun, Obokun, Atakumosa West, Atakumosa East, Ife South, Ilesa East, Isokan, Ola-Oluwa and Olorunda, several of them by comfortable margins.
However, the distribution of those victories worked against the APC: its wins were spread across councils with smaller vote pools, while Adeleke’s advantage was concentrated in Osun’s most populous local government areas, particularly Ede and Osogbo, leaving Oyebamiji unable to close the statewide gap despite winning more than a third of the state’s councils.
The 2026 result illustrates a broader point about Nigerian gubernatorial contests: a candidate does not need to win the most local government areas to win a state, only to accumulate the largest aggregate vote total, and Adeleke’s concentrated strength in vote-rich councils proved decisive even as the APC demonstrated it remains a serious statewide force capable of winning nearly two out of every five councils in Osun.
Tinubu, Political Leaders Across Party Lines React
President Tinubu, in a statement personally signed and posted on X, said Adeleke’s re-election “once again confirmed the confidence the people of Osun State have in him,” and urged the governor to unite Osun residents regardless of how they voted.
“The outcome of the election reflects the will of the people and is a fitting assurance that democracy will continue to flourish in our land,” Tinubu said, commending INEC and security agencies for what he described as a peaceful and transparent process.
Congratulatory messages followed from across the political divide.
Former Bayelsa State Governor Henry Seriake Dickson called the outcome “a reminder that, even in an increasingly challenging political environment, the people can still assert their democratic will through the ballot,” while Minister of Aviation Festus Keyamo described it as a “historic victory.”
Former Senator Ben Murray-Bruce, a onetime colleague of Adeleke’s in the Eighth Senate, offered a personal congratulation, while former Lagos governorship candidate Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour framed the result as proof that “no amount of guns, intimidation and inducement can deter a people determined” to vote freely.
Also, Dino Melaye, a former senator, described the outcome simply as an opposition win.
Adeleke Renews Backing For Tinubu’s 2027 Bid
Delivering his victory speech, Adeleke reaffirmed his earlier endorsement of Tinubu for a second presidential term in 2027, thanking the President for what he called his support for a free and fair governorship election in the state.
“Mr President is a son of Osun State and I hereby reaffirm my earlier endorsement of him for second term in the 2027 presidential election,” Adeleke said.
Keyamo welcomed the renewed endorsement in a post on X, describing Adeleke as “a man of integrity and honour,” adding, “Agreement is agreement.”
The declaration brings months of campaigning in the South-West state to a close, with 15 political parties having fielded candidates in the election, the most in the state’s recent electoral history.
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