The outcome of the Osun State governorship election has opened up another round of political discourse ahead of the 2027 general elections.
DAILY POST recalls that Governor Ademola Adeleke of the Accord Party won the Osun governorship election after receiving 511,067 votes, while APC’s Bola Oyebamiji garnered 444,815 votes. ADC’s Najeem Salaam finished in third place with 17,180 votes. Adeleke triumphed in 19 of the state’s 30 local government areas, whereas Oyebamiji won in 11.
Political observers are expressing mixed views on whether Nigerians can replicate the resilience demonstrated by residents of Osun in resisting electoral manipulation and financial inducements.
According to the observers, achieving a similar level of resistance nationwide would depend on several factors, particularly stronger grassroots mobilisation and voter awareness. However, they noted that significant structural challenges could still undermine efforts to achieve this.
DAILY POST reports that political analysts and civil society organisations have highlighted how high voter turnout and local vigilance effectively countered political intimidation and substantial financial influence.
However, translating a localised dynamic into a nationwide presidential and general election presents unique obstacles.
Nigerians have drawn several lessons from the Osun election, one of which is the “Collect and Vote Your Conscience” strategy.
A significant development in Osun involved voters accepting cash and food items from political representatives while deliberately casting their votes for their preferred candidates. In certain polling units, determined groups actively chased away those attempting to buy votes.
Additionally, the high voter turnout played a crucial role in thwarting electoral fraud.
Osun recorded an impressive turnout of more than 40 per cent. Civil rights experts assert that when citizens flood polling stations in large numbers, it significantly reduces the possibility of result manipulation.
Moreover, DAILY POST reports that the residents did not merely cast their votes and go home. They remained to observe the counting process, recorded the results on their mobile devices and monitored the data to ensure its accuracy before the official collation.
As credit is being attributed to the residents of Osun for their resilience, politicians, particularly those affiliated with the ruling party, contend that Adeleke’s re-election success was merely facilitated by President Bola Tinubu.
To underscore this, Governor Adeleke, shortly after being declared winner of the August 15 election, promptly visited the Presidential Villa, choosing to acknowledge President Tinubu and attribute his victory to the President’s generosity.
Adeleke said that Tinubu guaranteed a fair and equitable electoral environment and conveyed his sincere gratitude to the President for permitting a transparent democratic process in Osun State.
Also, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, suggested immediately after the election that the outcome was not about Adeleke’s popularity or the will of the people, but simply Tinubu’s wish.
Wike said he would have been in Osun State to help secure victory for the APC if President Bola Tinubu had wanted the party to win the governorship election.
Speaking to DAILY POST on whether Nigerian voters would replicate the resistance shown by voters in Osun, a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Dr Adetokunbo Pearse, who is also a former governorship candidate and convener of Reset Lagos PDP, warned that Nigerians should expect a repetition of what he described as terrorism carried out by the APC in Osun during the governorship election.
He added that not every state would have the capacity to withstand the APC as Governor Adeleke succeeded in doing in Osun State, adding that the general election would be bloody.
He told DAILY POST: “I believe that the issue of vote buying has never been as effective as most people think. I’ve been in many elections, and I know that in spite of the fact that people are offered money, they usually vote their conscience.
“Most people vote their conscience. Think about this: if it was a question of money, Peter Obi would not have won any state in 2023.
“People wanted to vote out Tinubu in Lagos, and when the presidential election came, people voted against Tinubu in Lagos, and he lost in Lagos.
“Obi had no money; he won in 12 states. So, you know, Nigerians are not as corrupt.
“Nigerian voters are not as gullible and sellable as people think. What usually happens is that the political power has all the machinery to use to force people to vote for them.
“They steal the vote. You know what the former national chairman of the APC, Ganduje, said: ‘We are going to go there and we are going to conquer. We are going to carry it by force.’
“Tinubu himself will say, ‘Take it, grab it, and run away with it.’ Yes, that’s their mantra. They tried it in Osun State. I don’t want people to get something wrong about what happened in Osun. They did it in Osun.
“Otherwise, they would not have had the number of votes they had. They lost by 66,000 votes. They would have lost by 200,000 votes if it was not for the fact that they took an army over there to capture the vote. That’s what happens in our elections.
“So what happened in Osun was that the governorship candidate, the incumbent Governor Adeleke, was able to match them force for force.
“When they brought in machinery, all their big guns with a lot of money, people took the money and people voted for them. Don’t forget that the 66,000-vote difference doesn’t… it’s not the kind of margin that they would have got.
“They would not have got 20 per cent of the votes they got if it wasn’t for the fact that they forced their way through.
“Vote buying, intimidation, rigging, all of it went on in Osun State. So, the lesson from Osun for people is that not only do you vote your conscience, you stay with the vote, you follow the vote all the way from the polling units to the collation centres, and that is what they did in Osun.
“So, we should expect the same thing that happened in Osun to happen in every state in the general election, and that means that the party in power, the APC, as always, will use intimidation, violence and vote buying.
“Not every state can survive like Osun. So, let us not be carried away by what happened in Osun. Not every state has a sitting governor and a Davido and an Adeleke family dynasty, which has a lot of clout.
“So, in spite of the fact that people loved Adeleke and wanted to vote for him, he would have lost, you know, if it was not for the fact that he had a very strong family line.
“Yes, he had a very strong support base from members, friends and so on. So, we have to be very careful. What we saw was frightening. In spite of the victory of the people, I am afraid that 2027 is going to be bloody.”
On her part, the former Country Director of ActionAid Nigeria and a member of the Steering Committee of the Nigerian Civil Society Situation Room, Ene Obi, criticised politicians for exploiting hunger and making financial incentives a significant factor in Nigeria’s elections.
She expressed concern over the lack of arrests for what she termed a disgraceful display at polling units and bribery before or during elections.
She refused to blame citizens for collecting the money, citing the scorching hardship that has further reduced the standard of living of citizens.
However, she called on the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to provide more privacy at polling stations, which would give voters room to still vote their conscience regardless of whether they had received inducements or not.
She told DAILY POST: “The reality is that INEC must protect citizens because, in some cases, the money is distributed even before they arrive at the polling unit. Voting should be a private matter.
“One notable observation I made in various locations during the Osun 2026 elections was the active involvement of citizens.
“I recall a specific polling unit in Osogbo town, which was considered a red zone. As the voting process was about to commence, one of the party agents pointed out that the placement of the voting cubicle was inappropriate.
“He insisted that the location be changed to ensure the privacy of the voting cubicle. I was pleased to see a young man take on that responsibility, and they successfully relocated the polling unit to a spot where voters could maintain their privacy, which was commendable.
“No one challenged this decision. Thus, safeguarding the voting cubicle equates to safeguarding the votes for Nigeria.
“If voting occurs in privacy and it is not visible to others, what will be the outcome?
“Therefore, we cannot simply condemn individuals who accept money. Naturally, one might question why anyone would accept money or allow their conscience to be bought.
“However, we are conducting this election at a time when over 100 million, and possibly now more than 150 million, individuals live below the poverty line.
“Given this situation, how many people can resist when offered N15,000 in exchange for showing their voter card, especially when they are struggling to find food? People are suffering from hunger, and instead of utilising state resources to support your citizens, which you pledged to protect, you resort to bribery to secure their votes. I believe there is a pressing need for enhanced citizens’ education.
“We need more citizens. Voter education is very, very important. Active citizenship is very important. The lifeblood of democracy is active citizenship. If citizens stop asking, do they think that there are no alternatives?
“Because this cannot go on; we can’t continue to go on like this. What we are seeing now, campaigning has been found, and you are making public servants part of your campaign team.
“You look at the amount of money that they are mentioning, N60 billion or whatever. Why are you weaponising poverty? You are stealing from Nigerians, and you are insulting them by giving them N15,000.
“For four years, you never did anything. You are not making headway with your promises to the people. The easiest way is to use money to buy the conscience of the people. God doesn’t forgive.”
2027: Osun outcome tests Nigerians’ resolve against vote buying, electoral manipulation