Governor Ademola Adeleke of the Accord Party has said he expects his closest rival, Bola Oyebamiji of the All Progressives Congress, to call and congratulate him following his declaration as winner of the Osun State governorship election.
The Independent National Electoral Commission declared Adeleke winner in the early hours of Sunday, after overnight collation of results from across the state’s 30 local government areas.
The Returning Officer, Professor Joshua Olalekan Ogunwole, Vice Chancellor of the Federal University, Oye-Ekiti, announced that Adeleke polled 511,067 votes to defeat Oyebamiji, who scored 444,815. Najeem Salaam of the African Democratic Congress placed third with 17,180 votes.
Fifteen parties contested the election, and Adeleke won in 19 of the 30 local government areas against Oyebamiji’s 11, a margin of 66,252 votes.
Speaking to reporters shortly after the declaration, Adeleke described the outcome as a triumph for democracy and a reward from Osun voters for his administration’s work in infrastructure, healthcare and security.
He thanked God for the victory and said the result reflected residents’ appreciation of his first term in office.
The governor also confirmed that President Bola Tinubu had personally called to congratulate him. He thanked the President for what he called his role in ensuring democracy prevailed, a reference to Tinubu’s earlier decision to direct the EFCC to unfreeze the state government’s account before the election.
Accord Party chieftain Pelumi Olajengbesi had separately told journalists at the INEC collation centre in Osogbo that Tinubu placed the call to Adeleke even before the result was formally announced, describing it as a mark of good leadership.
Olajengbesi commended the President for staying out of the electoral process but stopped short of calling the election entirely free and fair, citing what he described as cases of intimidation and arrests of opposition supporters during the exercise.
INEC’s breakdown showed that out of 2,339,544 registered voters, 1,010,684 were accredited, with 985,097 valid votes and 20,721 rejected ballots recorded from a total of 1,005,800 ballots cast.
News of the declaration triggered jubilation in Osogbo, the state capital, as Adeleke’s supporters trooped onto the streets singing victory songs and waving placards.
Residents who spoke to reporters commended INEC for what they described as a well-run process, with one resident, Taiwo Oloyede, praising Tinubu for giving the commission a free hand and for intervening in the account freeze saga. Another resident, Odunola Omojola, said the governor’s welfare-focused policies for civil servants helped secure his re-election.
As of the time of this report, Oyebamiji had not issued a public statement reacting to the declared result, and it remained unclear whether he intended to challenge the outcome at the election petition tribunal, a route his predecessor Gboyega Oyetola pursued after the 2022 contest.
