Accord Party candidate and incumbent Osun State Governor, Ademola Adeleke, has maintained a strong lead over his All Progressives Congress (APC) counterpart, Bola Oyebamiji, as the collation of results from Saturday’s governorship election nears completion.
According to the latest results uploaded to the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) Result Viewing Portal (IReV) and contained in Form EC8A, Adeleke has secured 491,975 votes, representing 51.9 per cent of the total votes counted.
Oyebamiji is in second place with 425,731 votes, representing 44.9 per cent, leaving Adeleke with a margin of 66,244 votes.
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) candidate, Najeem Salaam, is a distant third with 16,513 votes, representing 1.7 per cent.
So far, results from 3,633 of the 3,763 polling units across the state’s 30 local government areas have been accounted for, with 948,768 valid votes recorded.
The latest figures show Adeleke maintaining an advantage of about seven percentage points over Oyebamiji, with results coming in from major areas including Ife, Ede, Osogbo and Iwo.
Only 130 polling units remain outstanding. Some of the outstanding units are reportedly from areas where voting was cancelled, potentially limiting the possibility of a significant change in the current margin.
Adeleke, who won the 2022 governorship election on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), is seeking a second term after defecting to the Accord Party.
If his lead is confirmed, the result would give the Accord Party its first governorship election victory in Osun State.
Fifteen political parties participated in the election, although two candidates — Adesina Adeyemi-Doro of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and Simon Adewale of the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) — had earlier withdrawn from the race.
INEC’s State Collation and Returning Officer has yet to formally declare the winner.
Under Nigeria’s electoral law, the candidate with the highest number of votes must also satisfy the constitutional requirement for geographical spread before being declared the winner.
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