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From Okwe Obi, Abuja
The Osun State governorship election has sprung up dynamics ahead of the 2027 plebiscite, which is five months and approximately 151 days to come.
Governor Ademola Adeleke of the Accord Party roundly defeated his main challenger, Bola Oyebamiji of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and Najeem Salaam of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), who came a distant third.
Peter Obi’s Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) did not come close in the contest. Prior to the poll, the atmosphere was tense. The omen was that Governor Adeleke was going to lose. The odds were obviously against him, as a faction of Accord Party members, including suspended civil servants in the state, endorsed Oyebamiji.
The freezing of the state’s account by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over claims of impropriety heightened the anxiety.
Also, public remarks by some APC governors and lawmakers who wanted to snatch the state by all means from Adeleke emboldened both supporters of the two dominant parties to fight to the finish.
The peace accord signed by the candidates made no impact as perceived supporters of the governor were arrested. The gale of killings drew the attention of both local and international observers.
Now, while Adeleke is busy dancing in celebration of his victory, the APC is yet to come to terms with the reality of the defeat, even though President Bola Tinubu has congratulated Adeleke.
There have been claims and counterclaims as to why the APC lost to Accord. For instance, Nasarawa State governor, Abdullahi Sule, pointed out that the APC lost because of the intervention of ‘Abuja politicians.’
Another chieftain of the party, Farouk Aliyu, shared the sentiments of Governor Sule, by stating that internal division within the party weakened its chances.
Some believe that aggrieved APC stalwarts in the last primaries worked against the party to register their displeasure.
Since the Osun State poll is the last off-cycle election, some political pundits have argued that next year’s elections would not be uhuru for the APC, as the outcome of Osun has nudged citizens to take decisive action against the party, given the parlous state of security and the economy.
Also, speculations are flying around that aggrieved APC members would likely join forces against the party. Governors of the North are yet to officially declare their stance on President Tinubu.
A political analyst, Jide Ojo, added flavour to what played out in Osun: “It was a sympathy vote that tilted the victory in favour of Adeleke. And I warned the APC in several of my media interviews.
“I said, look, the way you are victimizing this person, you are going to make him popular. You are going to make people to be sympathetic to his cause. Because, here you are, you want to deregister his party, the party upon which he is contesting.
“Remember, Accord Party was one of the five parties deregistered or asked to be deregistered by Justice Peter Lifu on June 15, 2026.
“This was a case that was filed by a forum of former legislators, a faceless and unregistered group that wanted these main opposition parties to be deregistered.”
Ojo believed that next year’s elections would be not business as usual, but will depend on performance, declaring that there would be a lot of political upsets much more than what politicians have ever witnessed in history.
According to him, even the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) would not toy with the votes of the masses as posterity will judge it either fairly or harshly.
“Because, if any party, whether ruling party at the centre or at the state, feels that with violence and money they can buy the people’s conscience and buy their way through to victory, what has happened in Osun is a signpost that, with your money, with violence, people can still resist you.
“People can still vote against you. And the Independent National Electoral Commission will be under pressure to deliver. Because the man, Joash Amupitan, wants to answer his father’s name.
“So INEC also needs to get its own act together; there must be level playing field, and then the police and other security agencies must be neutral, must be politically neutral, and not aid and abet crime.
“Because these are some of the, you know, the total package that will deliver credible election. All the actors and stakeholders must work and act professionally.
“He knew he was appointed by a politician but when the things are done it is him that will be persecuted by Nigerian public as having conducted bad elections.
“So he wants to do his level best. But where the political class will miss it is if they think that they can bribe people with palliatives such as rice or all these condiments that they share at elections,” he said.
According to him, “all this daily banditry, mass kidnapping must not happen in the leadup to elections, so that the opponent does not demarcate it within security.
“They need to improve on infrastructure, so that they can say, we have been able to add 1,000 kilometres of road or X number of roads, then they need to improve on health and education. They need to improve on the living standard of the people.
“The people are crying that the cost of living is too high and unbearable for them. How can government bring it down and improve and make sure that people are able to pay their bills without having to borrow?
“This is my message, this is the rapid response that APC needs to do between now and election time. If it fails to do this, there will be mass lawsuits.
“They may win by a slight margin, they may win the presidency, but they may lose so many states, and they may also lose the control of the Senate and House of Representatives. So, this is the message today, to improve on the living standard of Nigerians, so that there will not be a damaged brand going into 2027 elections.”
He added that, if politicians should take the law into their hand to start killing voters in the lead-up to elections, it will inadvertantly anger the people against them and make people vote them out of power, stressing that they need to tread very carefully.
He counselled political actors who seek re-election, saying, “it is good performance, good governance. Because, if they are able to deliver on credible governance, improve infrastructure, improve the standard of living of workers in their states, they are able. That is the template I think they should copy from Osun.”
Still on performance, he likened Abia State governor, Alex Otti, as the poster child of development.
“That is what people are saying about Governor Alex Otti in Abia State. Is that not what they are saying?
“This man has been able to see many roads that he has been able to do. See how he has turned this state into a kind of small London.
“It does not matter whether he belongs to Labour Party. He does not have to be in APC to win elections.
“He absolutely does not have to join APC to win in Abia. He was elected based on his performance in office. So what I am saying is that 2027 will likely be ‘performance day’ before you can think of any palliative distribution that can help you,” he said.
Ojo contended that money or vote-buying will pay little or no role in the election. He said: “I don’t think it will do much to help anybody. In fact, I have always said that there is a limitation to the influence of money in politics. If you think that with your billions or trillions you can just throw money around and people will scamper and then they will come and vote for you, you may be disappointed.
“There were seven sitting governors who could not win their election to the Senate. Even as a sitting governor, two-term governors of their state who could not win their election into the Senate. It tells you about the people’s power.
“So what will be the determinant in 2027 will be more of performance, your charisma, the party you belong, and how much of what you do is known by the people.
“Because sometimes people perform but they are not able to communicate. The people that they did all of that for are not aware that they did it.”
The analyst advised political parties and their candidates to showcase what they have done since they came on board, adding that they should get communication experts to guide them properly.
“They need to have very good communication experts who will sell them, who will do verification of their projects, who will be able to convince people, this man has done XYZ.
“Because, if you do everything and you leave out the media and people don’t know about it, you can suffer vicariously.
“So what I’m saying in essence is that performance first, then your party, your charisma, your rhetoric, what you have been able to do or what you have put together as your agenda for the people, and your pedigree.
“Where are you coming from? What have you done previously? The people are not going to vote for people who don’t have a second address, whose only occupation is politics.
“But if you say, I have done XYZ as a member of the Senate, for instance, if Olamide Konyaye, the consensus candidate of Fethi Nogu, if he is going to campaign now, will he not campaign on what he has been able to do? In his 12 years in the Senate?
“He would be able to say, I have done this, I have facilitated this, I have initiated this bill, which has become law, I have been able to attract projects to my people. That is your pedigree.
“I am an accountant, I have worked at so-so-so places, this is the impact I have been able to make. So, your pedigree, performance in office, before your party that you belong to, and then, of course, the fairness of the electoral process, as may be packaged by INEC, because INEC also will have a say. If INEC wants to bungle the election, they will bungle it,” he said.
National chairman of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), Major Agbor, added that what played out in Osun State indicated that the country was headed for the best.
“We may not have the best in 2027, but, like we always say, since we have been in the trenches, we have always been saying that every election cycle takes us to the best level as a country, democratically. So we have improved over time, and what we saw in Osun was an improvement.”
Agbor added that he does not believe that an off-cycle election is a good yardstick for generalisation for next year’s elections.
“And of course, I don’t believe that these off-season elections offer good yardsticks for generalizations as to the extent to which our democracy has evolved.
“But at least it gives you an idea of what the electorate are thinking now, which is that they are determined to come out, vote and protect their votes. It also has given us an idea of the level of preparedness of INEC.
“At least we saw results transmitted real-time to the IREV, even though there were stoppages here and there.
“So it is a better improvement than what we saw in 2023, or even what we saw in Ondo. We saw a larger improvement in Osun where every 20 minutes or thereabouts results were trickling into the IREV.
“We believe that it is a wake-up call for INEC to do more, because we are going to have an election that spreads all over the entire landscape, the entire country. And so what we saw in Osun should make them wake up and be more prepared to handle the wider election, which is nationwide. There are a couple of problems that people saw.
“At least there were pockets of ballot snatching and all of that. And that’s why we have always said that our democracy moves beyond paper and ink pads. We are able to get to the level of technology where the voter goes to the polling unit without anything.
“No paper is given to him, no ballot paper. It’s just him and the machine, and he touches the party of his choice on the screen of the machine. Until we get there, we cannot say.”
The chairman stressed that snatching of ballot boxes is no longer important as results are transmitted electronically.
“And that is why people still believe that they could snatch ballot boxes. It has not occurred to them that the ballot boxes are inconsequential. When we begin to have results going directly into the IREV results database, you will see that whoever is dissipating energy to go and snatch ballot boxes is only just wasting time.
“So these are improvements that we need to look at; from the report I am getting from Osun, even from the visuals, I know that there were cases of ballot box snatching and all of that. But it seems insignificant compared to what we’ve had in the past. So these are some areas that we still need to look at.”
He scored the INEC 65 out of hundred in the conduct of the election.
“Generally, if I had to score the exercise, I would give INEC 65%.
“On the conduct of electorate, if you want me to score the Osun electorate, what I can tell you is that I’ll be so generous to say they have 80%, because they did not only pass the vote, they stood by their decision, and they showed that nothing shook it.
“And that is why they kept reaching across all the collation centres, right from the polling units all through the wards, local governments and then state collation centres, until they got what they wanted.
“That’s the clear reflection of the wishes and aspirations of the Osun people. That is to say that our voters are evolving, you know, and if we have that replicated across the entire states, we’re almost near Uhuru. That is on the conduct of the voters.”
As for his party, he expressed optimism of victory, saying nobody gave Accord a chance in Osun State, and it did well, against all odds.
“This is not the first time we’re doing it. We had a governor before.
“We have had senators, we have had members of both the federal house and the state house. So we want to consolidate them. Our chances are bright.
“Some systemic weakness that we saw was a result of the protracted leadership crisis. But you can see that we are stabilized. So we’re making progress,” he concluded.
