Segun Atanda/
Governor Ademola Adeleke of the Accord Party is maintaining a lead over his closest challenger, Bola Oyebamiji of the All Progressives Congress (APC), as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) continues the collation of results from Saturday’s Osun State governorship election.
Adeleke was seen celebrating, dancing and giving thanks to God as he awaited the official declaration by INEC.
His celebration, however, does not amount to an official declaration of victory, as the state-wide collation process had not been formally concluded at the time of this report.
As of the latest available updates, provisional results from polling units uploaded to INEC’s Result Viewing Portal (IReV) show Adeleke maintaining a substantial lead over Oyebamiji.
With 3,580 of the 3,763 expected polling-unit results — about 95.14 per cent — uploaded, the available figures from provisional election trackers put Adeleke at roughly 505,000 to 508,000 votes, compared with approximately 423,000 to 434,000 for Oyebamiji. Najeem Salaam of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) is a distant third with about 17,000 votes.
The precise totals may continue to change as outstanding results are incorporated and the statutory collation progresses. INEC has yet to make the official statewide declaration.
One of the latest formally collated local government results came from Osogbo Local Government Area, where Adeleke recorded a substantial victory over Oyebamiji.
According to the result announced at the Osogbo LGA collation centre, Adeleke polled 36,480 votes, while Oyebamiji received 30,474. Salaam of the ADC recorded 1,503 votes.
The Osogbo result gave Adeleke a margin of 6,006 votes in the state capital.
The result is particularly significant because Osogbo is the state capital and one of the state’s major voting centres.
The latest result also represents a considerably stronger performance for Adeleke in Osogbo than in the 2022 governorship election. In that election, he polled 30,401 votes in the LGA against 22,952 for the then APC candidate, Gboyega Oyetola.
Earlier in the evening, INEC’s upload process was considerably less advanced. Reports indicated that 3,191 of the 3,763 expected polling-unit result sheets had been uploaded to IReV, representing 84.8 per cent at the time of its update.
The increase in the number of uploaded results subsequently reported is consistent with the continuing electronic publication of polling-unit results, although the various dashboards do not necessarily update simultaneously.
The NEIS figures reported at 11.39pm put Adeleke on 50.2 per cent, compared with 43.6 per cent for Oyebamiji. Salaam had 1.7 per cent.
The figures differ from earlier Dataphyte snapshots because additional results had been incorporated. Earlier Dataphyte data supplied during the counting process showed Adeleke with 408,269 votes and Oyebamiji with 345,171 votes from 3,020 polling units.
The subsequent NEIS figures show both candidates’ totals increasing substantially, while Adeleke’s lead narrowed to 55,966 votes.
The election has effectively become a contest between Adeleke and Oyebamiji for first place, with Salaam well behind the two leading candidates.
Adeleke is seeking a second term after winning the 2022 governorship election as the PDP candidate. He subsequently left the PDP and contested the 2026 election under the Accord Party.
Adeleke formally joined Accord in December 2025, while the Osun PDP later adopted his re-election bid under the Accord platform.
Oyebamiji, a former Osun Commissioner for Finance, is the APC candidate and Adeleke’s principal challenger in the current election. He voted in Irewole Local Government Area on Saturday and expressed confidence that he would win the election.
In the 2022 governorship election, Adeleke defeated Oyetola with 403,371 votes to 375,027, a margin of 28,344 votes. INEC declared Adeleke the winner after the completion of collation.
The 2022 result was subsequently challenged in court. The Osun Governorship Election Petition Tribunal initially nullified Adeleke’s election, but the decision was overturned on appeal, and the Supreme Court ultimately upheld Adeleke’s victory in May 2023.
The election was generally reported as having proceeded across the state, although there were technical problems and allegations of irregularities at some polling units.
For now, the available evidence shows Adeleke leading Oyebamiji in the emerging statewide figures, while the final result remains in the hands of INEC.
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