By Ismail Auwal

Ademola Adeleke’s victory shows that the APC can be defeated when its local structure is divided. But the governor’s endorsement of President Bola Tinubu complicates attempts to present the result as a straightforward victory for Nigeria’s national opposition.

By the time the final results were announced in Osogbo on Sunday morning, Governor Ademola Adeleke’s supporters had already begun celebrating. After months of litigation, defections, political violence and uncertainty over his place on the ballot, the governor had secured another four years in office.

Mr Adeleke, who contested under the Accord Party, received 511,067 votes. His closest challenger, Bola Oyebamiji of the All Progressives Congress, secured 444,815 votes, while Najeem Salaam of the African Democratic Congress finished a distant third with 17,180 votes.

The governor won 19 of Osun’s 30 local government areas. The APC carried 11, leaving the remaining 13 candidates with little influence over the final outcome.

On the surface, the election was a clear victory for an incumbent governor. Beneath the figures, however, is a more complicated story about candidate selection, party organisation, community influence and the difference between winning a state election and building a national coalition.

Osun has finished voting. But the election may have opened Nigeria’s clearest window into the road to 2027.

Adeleke expanded his political territory

Mr Adeleke’s victory was more decisive than the one that brought him into office four years ago. In 2022, he received 403,371 votes and defeated the then governor, Gboyega Oyetola, by 28,344 votes.

In 2026, Mr Adeleke increased his total by more than 107,000 votes. His margin of victory grew to 66,252 votes, while the number of local governments he won increased from 17 to 19.

The APC also increased its raw vote. Mr Oyebamiji received almost 70,000 more votes than Mr Oyetola recorded in 2022, but the increase was not enough because Mr Adeleke expanded his coalition faster.

The Insight Desk Analysis found that Mr Adeleke received about 51.9 per cent of the valid votes, compared with approximately 50.1 per cent in 2022. The APC’s share declined from about 46.6 per cent to 45.2 per cent.

This is an important distinction. The APC did not lose because its supporters disappeared. It lost because Mr Adeleke was more successful at finding new voters and absorbing political networks displaced by the internal crises in other parties.

A candidate who became bigger than his platform

Mr Adeleke won the 2022 election under the Peoples Democratic Party. By the time he sought re-election in 2026, a crisis within the PDP had forced him to search for another platform.

He eventually moved to Accord, a party without the national machinery, financial strength or historical presence of the PDP and APC. His eligibility was challenged, and questions persisted over whether the party would be permitted to field him.

Ordinarily, changing parties shortly before an election should weaken a candidate. Major parties provide recognisable symbols, polling agents, ward organisers and local structures that cannot be assembled overnight.

Mr Adeleke’s victory shows that an established candidate can sometimes carry those structures into a smaller party. He did not join Accord alone. He arrived with incumbency, family networks, former PDP organisers and the political relationships he had developed through several election cycles.

This is one of the first lessons for 2027. Political platforms remain important, but voters can follow candidates who possess recognisable identities and functioning grassroots networks.

The lesson must not be misunderstood. Accord did not create the Adeleke movement. The movement gave Accord electoral value in Osun.

Politicians looking for last-minute platforms cannot assume that Mr Adeleke’s success can be easily reproduced. Without his incumbency, name recognition and local machinery, the same party might have recorded a very different result.

Performance, personality and political inheritance

Mr Adeleke’s supporters have presented the election as an endorsement of his performance. His record on workers’ welfare, including the payment of salaries and pensions, appears to have strengthened his support among civil servants.

Infrastructure also featured in the campaign, although critics accused the governor of concentrating development around Ede, his hometown. The result suggests that this criticism was not powerful enough to dismantle his broader coalition.

Mr Adeleke also possesses a public identity that cannot be manufactured easily through campaign advertisements. His informal style, dancing and accessibility have helped him build an image that is familiar to voters who might ordinarily feel distant from political leaders.

His family name provided another advantage. The Adeleke family has been involved in Osun politics for decades, giving the governor access to relationships, resources and loyalty that extend beyond one party.

Voters rarely make electoral choices for one reason. Performance, personality, party loyalty, community relationships and perceptions of rival candidates often work together.

That combination was visible in the geographical spread of the result. Mr Adeleke dominated Ede North and Ede South, but his victory extended beyond his family’s traditional base.

He also won Osogbo, Ife East, Iwo, Egbedore and Oriade.

The APC may have lost before election day

The results announced at the collation centre reflected decisions made months before voters arrived at the polling units. The APC entered the election with a candidate but without the full commitment of all its influential members.

Mr Oyebamiji’s emergence reportedly left several aspirants and their supporters dissatisfied. Although many of the politicians remained formally within the APC, some of their local networks moved towards the Accord Party.

Former Deputy Governor Iyiola Omisore was among those reported to have been dissatisfied with the process. His followers crossed over to Mr Adeleke’s camp, and the effect became visible in parts of Ife where the APC underperformed.

The reported imposition of a candidate also alienated politicians concerned about their own futures. Some party members understood that an Oyebamiji victory could strengthen one internal faction and weaken their chances in subsequent contests.

They did not necessarily announce their opposition publicly. Their supporters, however, knew where to direct their votes.

President Tinubu reportedly summoned 76 Osun APC leaders shortly before the election and asked them to close ranks. The intervention suggests that the national leadership understood the depth of the division.

But reconciliation meetings held shortly before voting cannot always repair injuries created during party primaries. By then, some aggrieved politicians had already developed alternative arrangements.

This is a warning for every party preparing for 2027. A party can lose a general election during its primary if candidate selection creates more enemies inside the organisation than supporters outside it.

The election was also won outside campaign rallies

Mr Adeleke’s coalition extended beyond formal party structures. His campaign brought together politicians, community networks and popular cultural influence.

The involvement of David Adeleke, the musician known as Davido and the governor’s nephew, attracted national attention. But his contribution should not be dismissed as celebrity entertainment.

Davido helped the campaign reach younger citizens and social-media audiences. His presence transformed parts of the election into a cultural conversation that travelled beyond speeches at political rallies.

He also became a forceful defender of the governor when APC campaigners attacked Mr Adeleke’s public image. This allowed the Accord campaign to answer political criticism in a language and on platforms familiar to younger voters.

The deeper lesson is that modern campaign structures are no longer composed only of ward chairpersons and polling agents. Cultural figures, online communities and trusted public personalities can extend a political message into spaces that conventional party organisers struggle to reach.

They cannot replace grassroots organisation. But when cultural influence works alongside local political machinery, it can increase attention, enthusiasm and turnout.

Adeleke’s victory may not be Tinubu’s defeat

The most complicated part of the Osun result came after Mr Adeleke had been declared the winner. While thanking President Tinubu for supporting a free electoral process, the governor reaffirmed his endorsement of the president’s re-election in 2027.

That statement disrupted the easiest interpretation of the election. Mr Adeleke defeated the president’s party, but he was not positioning himself against the president.

The distinction matters because governorship and presidential elections are different contests. A voter who supported Mr Adeleke against the APC candidate in 2026 may still vote for Mr Tinubu in 2027.

Osun has demonstrated this capacity to separate elections before. In the 2023 presidential election, Atiku Abubakar received 354,366 votes in the state, while Mr Tinubu secured 343,945 votes.The difference was only 10,421 votes.

Mr Adeleke now controls a political network that mobilised more than half a million votes. If he openly campaigns for Mr Tinubu, the president could gain access to supporters who rejected the APC in the governorship election.

Such an arrangement could benefit both men. Mr Adeleke retains control of Osun without joining the APC, while Mr Tinubu gains the support of a governor who has demonstrated substantial electoral strength.

This makes it difficult for national opposition figures to claim the entire Osun result as their own. The election shows that the APC can be defeated. It does not yet prove that Osun will vote against Mr Tinubu.

The ADC failed its biggest test

The performance of the ADC delivered one of the clearest messages of the election. The party entered the contest hoping to demonstrate that it had developed from a gathering of prominent politicians into an organisation capable of winning votes.

Osun was considered an important test because Rauf Aregbesola, a former governor with extensive experience in the state, serves as the party’s national secretary. Its candidate, Najeem Salaam, was also a former speaker of the Osun State House of Assembly.

Despite those advantages, the ADC received only 17,180 votes. It could not convert the prominence of its leaders into a competitive electoral structure.

The defection of Moshood Adeoti to Accord further weakened the party. Mr Adeoti’s exit deprived the ADC of an experienced organiser and transferred another political network to Mr Adeleke.

The party also failed to demonstrate strong national interest early enough. By the time its campaign gathered attention, Accord and the APC had already dominated the contest.

ADC officials attributed the result partly to limited financial resources and reported vote-buying. Those concerns deserve investigation, but they do not fully explain the scale of its defeat.

The party had also failed to win any of the six area councils in the FCT election and finished a distant third in the Ekiti governorship contest. Osun had been described as a crucial test of the ADC’s strength and Mr Aregbesola’s continuing influence.

The result shows that collecting prominent defectors is not the same as building a political party. Press conferences in Abuja cannot replace ward structures, polling agents, community organisers and trusted local candidates.

Opposition cooperation worked, but only around a viable candidate

The G100 political coalition has presented Osun as a template for opposition cooperation. Some candidates abandoned their individual ambitions and supported Mr Adeleke, allowing political strength to gather around the person considered most capable of defeating the APC.

That cooperation mattered. Fragmentation would have forced Mr Adeleke to compete against politicians and local networks that eventually joined his coalition.

But Osun does not prove that every opposition alliance will succeed. The coalition was built around a popular incumbent governor with an existing structure and recognisable record.

At the national level, opposition leaders remain divided over candidate selection, regional interests and control of party structures. Earlier attempts to establish a single coalition were weakened by internal disputes and mistrust.

Peter Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso left an ADC-led alliance, reviving concerns about another fragmented presidential field.

Opposition unity cannot exist only in statements. It requires prominent politicians to sacrifice personal ambitions, agree on a credible candidate and build structures capable of defending votes across the country.

Osun shows that cooperation can work. It also shows that cooperation is most effective when it gathers around a candidate who already possesses electoral value.

Public frustration cannot organise itself

Nigeria will approach the 2027 election under significant economic pressure. Many households continue to struggle with food prices, transport costs, electricity tariffs, rent and unemployment.

The opposition will attempt to turn that hardship into a referendum on the Tinubu administration. But Osun shows that dissatisfaction does not automatically produce votes for an alternative party.

Voters must first recognise the candidate and trust the political structure presenting that candidate. They must believe that the alternative can govern and that their votes will be protected.

Mr Adeleke did not win simply because some voters were dissatisfied with the APC. He won because dissatisfaction encountered a familiar candidate, a functioning political vehicle and organisers capable of mobilising voters.

Anger can weaken an incumbent, but it cannot recruit polling agents, reconcile rival factions or protect results at collation centres. Those responsibilities still belong to political parties.

A credible election with unresolved concerns

Election day was calmer than many observers feared. Officials arrived early in many areas, security personnel were visible and the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System worked in most polling units.

There were, however, reported cases of biometric authentication failure and delays. Yiaga Africa called for a technical review of BVAS devices before the general election.

Civil-society observers also documented allegations of vote trading, voter obstruction, campaigning around polling units and other irregularities. SERAP subsequently demanded investigations by INEC and anti-corruption agencies.

These reports do not automatically invalidate the outcome. They show that an election can produce a broadly accepted winner while still containing practices that weaken electoral credibility.

The campaign period also witnessed serious political violence.

A relatively peaceful election day should not erase the intimidation that precedes it. When violence frightens citizens away from political participation, damage occurs before the first ballot is cast.

Osun cannot be used to declare INEC ready for 2027

Osun was an off-cycle election held in one state. This allowed the police, military, other security agencies and INEC to concentrate personnel and resources within a limited geographical area.

The 2027 general elections will present a different challenge. Security agencies will have to operate across the federation, while INEC will simultaneously manage thousands of constituencies and polling locations.

The relative success of Osun therefore provides useful lessons but not a guarantee. Systems that worked when national resources were concentrated in one state may struggle when those resources are spread across the country.

INEC must investigate the reported BVAS failures, improve training and prepare faster technical support. Security agencies must also develop a deployment strategy that does not depend on concentrating overwhelming personnel in one location.

Osun is a signal, not a prediction

It is tempting for opposition leaders to present Mr Adeleke’s victory as evidence that President Tinubu will be defeated in 2027. It is equally tempting for the APC to dismiss the outcome as a local contest won by a popular incumbent.

Both interpretations are incomplete.

Osun cannot predict how voters in Kano, Rivers, Lagos, Plateau or Borno will behave. Presidential elections require national coalitions, regional balance and sufficient geographical spread.

But the election provides evidence about how Nigerian politics is changing. It shows that voters can separate candidates from parties and local elections from national contests.

It shows that the APC’s growing control of governors and political elites does not guarantee control of the electorate. A divided local structure can still lose despite the support of the national leadership.

It also shows that an opposition party cannot rely on public anger, prominent defectors or social-media visibility. It must build local structures, select credible candidates and persuade rival leaders to work together.

For the APC, Osun is a warning about internal exclusion and the limits of federal influence. For the ADC, it is evidence that national ambition has moved far ahead of grassroots capacity.

For the wider opposition, the message is both hopeful and uncomfortable. The APC can be defeated, but only through disciplined organisation around a viable candidate.

Even then, Adeleke’s endorsement of Mr Tinubu means his victory cannot be automatically transferred to the national opposition. Osun may have rejected the APC’s governorship candidate without rejecting the APC’s presidential candidate.

The election has therefore given every side something to study, but none of them a complete reason to celebrate.

Osun has voted. The posters will eventually disappear, and the rallies will be replaced by the ordinary work of government.

The political questions raised by the result will remain. Nigeria may discover in 2027 that the first signs of its next electoral direction were already visible in the figures announced in Osogbo.

Ismail Auwal writes from Abuja, Nigeria