Follow Us on Google
History was made on 15 August 2026 in Osun State. This is the first time an incumbent opposition governor will win elections for two consecutive terms directly from the will of the people without judicial interference. Gov Rauf Aregbesola came in the first time through judicial pronouncement even though he won twice as an opposition governor. Gov Ademola Adeleke won his two elections directly from the people of Osun State indicating that the people’s power is supreme in a democracy.
The build up to the Osun State election saw the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) at the centre deploy about 17 APC Governors, 50 Senators, many House of Representatives members, including the Senate President, Senator Godswill Akpabio, about N110b to Osun State to capture Osun State for APC. The N110b was principally for vote buying. They failed. Osun people resisted them to a standstill and defeated them.
Osun people were arrested, they were jailed, they were injured, and they were killed for insisting that their will should be respected. Yet, they resisted the ruling party. The Secretary to the State Government (SSG) and other officials of government were arrested and put in jail for sometime. About 50 persons were killed and more than 100 injured, but they were not deterred. Their accounts were frozen about two weeks to election, probably to deny them the opportunity to concentrate on preparation for the election. They overcame.
On election day, as about 80 per cent of the votes were uploaded on the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV Portal) at about 8 pm, when it appeared obvious that APC was losing the election, the upload was suspended. Osun people resisted it. They moved en masse to the collation centres to resist INEC. The young Davido screamed to the whole world and accused the Senate President and other APC stalwarts in the state for the suspension of the upload. The incumbent governor raised alarm. The uploads came back in about four hours, after which the governor was declared the winner. No reason has been given for the suspension of the upload till date. However, it is important to note that 100 per cent of the legitimate results have been uploaded on the IReV Portal for the whole world to see.
There are very important lessons to be learnt from the Osun State guber election. Nothing is too sacred for APC not to sacrifice because of power, including killing of human beings. The abominable statement of Senator Francis Fadahunsi that the members of the Governor’s Accord Party should be killed everywhere they are found in Osun State during the election with his authority confirms this reality. It shows that APC may adopt the method of Senator Fadahunsi in 2027 general elections.
Life has no duplicate. The opposition parties and members must commence preparation to defend their lives in accordance with section 33 of the 1999 Constitution as the Osun State voters did. Section 33(1)(2)(a)(b) of the Constitution provides that “Every person has a right to life, and no one shall be deprived intentionally of his life, save in execution of the sentence of a court in respect of a criminal offence of which he has been found guilty in Nigeria. A person shall not be regarded as having been deprived of his life in contravention of this section, if he dies as a result of the use, to such extent and in such circumstances as are permitted by law, of such force as is reasonably necessary for the defence of any person from unlawful violence or for the defence of property; in order to effect a lawful arrest or to prevent the escape of a person lawfully detained.”
The essence of this section is that anybody who wants to kill another person for the sake of election rigging can be arrested by the people, detained by the people, or killed by the people to stop him from killing another person or forcefully snatching or destroying ballot papers, boxes, and other election materials. Section 39 of the Police Act, 2020 empowers a private person to arrest a suspect in Nigeria who in his presence commits an offence. Nigerians must therefore be prepared to defend their lives and their votes in 2027 to stop APC from killing them or stealing their victory. This is what Osun State people did and no authority can find them guilty for doing that.
The more chilling message for 2027 was from the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, Nyesom Wike, when he said that if Tinubu wanted to win at all cost, Tinubu would have drafted him to Osun State to accomplish that. Tinubu is a person who believes that all is fair in politics, while Wike believes that he wins elections at all cost. This means that the will of the people in APC’s calculation will not determine the election of 2027 but the will of Tinubu’s appointees like Wike.
Other News
Wike is not a voter from Osun State. He is not a member of APC. The only connection he has with Tinubu is the contract of making Tinubu to win at all cost in elections in return for political appointments. The result of Obiakpor Local Government of Rivers State was called in favour of the Labour Party in 2023 presidential election by the BBC broadcasting station, London, judging by the results posted on the IReV Portal by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). However, the result was manipulated, at all cost, during manual, mutilated collation of result to favour Tinubu’s APC in Rivers State. Obiakpor is Wike’s Local Government Area in Rivers State. Could it be this kind of winning at all cost that Wike was referring to? Whatever is the answer to this poser, the conclusive assertion one can reasonably make is that Tinubu and Wike want to win the 2027 election at all cost for APC. Nigerians must rise in 2027 like Osun State rose in 2026 and stop election riggers at all cost.
Another lesson from the 2026 Osun election is that whereas it is desirable that all opposition parties and leaders should work together to defeat Tinubu in 2027, Tinubu can still be defeated even if all the opposition parties contested differently for the election. Opposition Parties in Osun State campaigned and contested differently, yet Accord Party defeated APC roundly. Even a faction of Accord Party supported APC, yet APC lost.
APC has been hammering on the lack of unity among all opposition parties going into 2027 general elections as a sign that Tinubu will win despite his poor performance. This is a mere psychological attack on the psyche of the opposition parties to doubt whether they can win or not. In 2023, Tinubu’s leadership style had not been tested. In 2027, he will run on his appalling administrative records. The opposition coalition which chose the African Democratic Congress (ADC) as its coalition party will roundly defeat APC at the federal level the same way Accord defeated APC at the State level, with or without the alliance of other fringe parties, because of the frustrations of the Nigerian masses.
No doubt it will be easier to defeat Tinubu with a comprehensive opposition agreement, and such alliance is hereby solicited, but with little more effort, the coalition ADC will achieve same feat without all inclusive opposition alliance. Nigerians should not be deceived by APC that they should vote for APC because the opposition cannot win. They should resist this psychological attack like the Osun people resisted the APC and voted for the party of their choice and the party won.
One of the greatest lessons of the Osun State election is the fact that the Presiding Officer of the polling unit does not need network to transmit polling unit results on the IReV Portal. Prof Yakubu Mahmood, former INEC Chairman, stated this clearly in 2022 that you don’t need network to transmit electronically from the polling unit as it can be uploaded offline. The network is only necessary for the download on IReV Portal, which will be completed before collation at the wards where special arrangements were made for the availability of network nationwide.
The proviso in section 60(3) of the Electoral Act has become useless and cannot be used to rig election. Section 60(3) states that “The Presiding Officer shall electronically transmit the results from each polling unit to IREV portal and such transmission shall be done after the prescribed Form EC8A has been signed and stamped by the Presiding officer and/or countersigned by the candidates or Polling agents where available at the Polling Unit: Provided that if the electronic transmission of the result fails as a result of communication failure and it becomes impossible to transmit the result contained in Form EC8A signed and stamped by the Presiding Officer and countersigned by the candidates or polling agents where available at the polling unit, the Form EC8A shall at all times remain the primary source of collation and declaration of the result.”
The proviso was added to allow a desperate APC a window to rig the 2027 election by using unverified manual polling units results for collation and declaration of results. Osun people resisted the suspension of uploading of the polling unit results on the IReV Portal when 80 per cent of the results were uploaded and APC was losing. The results were eventually uploaded on the IReV Portal for the declaration of Gov Adeleke of the Accord Party as Governor.
Nigerians must insist that all results must be uploaded on the IReV Portal by all polling unit Presiding Officers and any polling unit Presiding Officer who refuses to upload on IReV Portal should be treated as a common criminal who wants to rig election and should be arrested and detained by the people until he verifiably transmits it on the IReV Portal. It is important to note that the IReV Portal is one of the best inventions of INEC to combat rigging of elections in Nigeria. We as a people must defend this invention to ensure free, fair and transparent election in 2027.
