…ADC’s Salaam trails distant third with 16,513 votes
Governorship candidate of the Accord Party, Senator Ademola Adeleke is set to win the 2026 Osun State governorship election, leading the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Bola Oyebamiji, by more than 66,000 votes.
A collation of the results uploaded from the field on INEC Form EC8A shows that Accord polled 491,975 votes, representing 51.9 per cent, as against the APC’s 425,731 votes, or 44.9 per cent.
The results comfortably place Adeleke ahead by 66,244 votes, with the results already in from 3,633 of the state’s 3,763 polling units across the 30 local government areas of the state.
The candidate of the African Democratic Congress, Najeem Salaam, trailed a distant third with 16,513 votes, representing 1.7 per cent.
About 14,500 votes are being shared between the remaining parties on the ballot.
As of the last update, a total of 948,768 valid votes had been counted.
The Accord Party candidate, who is also the incumbent Governor of the state, built the lead on strong showings across the state with a consistent margin of about seven percentage points from the earliest results through to the closing stages of the count.
Adeleke maintained the margin as fresh results arrived from Ife, Ede, Osogbo and Iwo local government areas, leaving the APC candidate, Oyebamiji with no realistic path to overturn the deficit.
The outstanding polling units, numbering about 130, include a number of units where voting was cancelled, which are not expected to really have much impact on the results or alter the outcome.
Governor Adeleke is seeking a second term, having won the 2022 election on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party before defecting to the Accord Party.
Recording a victory by Adeleke would be the first governorship election win for the Accord Party in Osun State.
No fewer than 15 political parties were on the ballot for Saturday’s election, although two candidates, Adesina Adeyemi-Doro of the All Progressives Grand Alliance and Simon Adewale of the Allied Peoples Movement had announced their withdrawal.
Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC State Collation and Returning Officer for Osun has yet to formally declare a winner.
According to the Electoral Act, a candidate must poll the highest number of votes cast and meet the geographical spread requirement to be returned elected as governor of a state.
