The dust may have barely settled on the Osun State governorship election of 15 August, 2026, but its political debris will travel far beyond Osogbo, the state capital. Although state elections are invariably shaped by local personalities and circumstances — incumbency, political alignments, peculiar grievances and idiosyncrasies — their outcomes can sometimes offer valuable insights into broader national sentiments. The results from Osun, therefore, contain lessons that the major political parties, particularly the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the main opposition African Democratic Congress (ADC), would be unwise to ignore as Nigeria moves inexorably towards the 2027 general elections.
I say this partly from experience. During the 2023 presidential election, I occupied a position from which I could observe at close quarters the relationship between seemingly local political developments and evolving national electoral sentiment. As Senior Special Adviser on Policy and Strategy to the then National Chairman of the ruling party, one of my responsibilities was to study changing public attitudes towards the party, the government and the principal personalities in power, and to offer analysis and recommendations that could help shape political strategy, electoral messaging and persuasive outreach to citizens. Just as it did in 2026, the APC lost in the elections in Osun State in 2022.
That experience impressed upon me the importance of not dismissing local political outcomes as isolated occurrences. A governorship election in one state cannot, of course, be mechanically projected onto a presidential contest involving thirty-six states and the Federal Capital Territory. Local personalities, ethnic and religious considerations, incumbency, party structures and immediate community interests differ considerably from one election to another. Nevertheless, carefully studied local elections can reveal movements beneath the political surface, such as declining enthusiasm for a ruling party, growing resentment against established personalities, the resilience or weakness of opposition structures, the effectiveness of political machinery and, above all, the disposition of ordinary voters towards prevailing conditions.
Serious political organisations, therefore, treat such elections as barometers. Complacent ones explain away inconvenient results until they are confronted by a much larger political reality. It is from this perspective that the Osun election deserves attention. The figures themselves are striking. Governor Ademola Adeleke, contesting on the platform of the nationally marginal Accord Party, secured 511,067 votes against 444,815 votes for Bola Oyebamiji of the ruling APC. Najeem Salaam of the ADC came a very distant third with only 17,180 votes. Adeleke won 19 of the 30 local government areas while the APC carried 11. The margin between Accord and the APC was 66,252 votes, while the ADC was effectively reduced to the margins of what was essentially a two-way contest.
There is therefore no disguising the magnitude of the ADC’s failure in Osun. A party presenting itself as a fresh phenomenon and one of the principal vehicles through which opposition forces hope to challenge the APC nationally could not make an appreciable impact against the Accord Party, which has nothing approaching the ADC’s current national visibility. That performance should give the party’s leaders in Abuja and throughout the country considerable food for thought and sleepless moments.
The ADC has attracted prominent political personalities and has become one of the principal platforms around which former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, GCON, and other opposition figures are positioning themselves ahead of 2027. But personalities alone do not constitute a political party, just as declarations of opposition do not amount to an electoral strategy. Photographs of prominent politicians meeting in Abuja, communiqués criticising the government and announcements of defections may generate headlines, but elections are not won in hotel conference rooms or on social media. They are won in states, local governments, wards and polling units.
A viable national party aspiring to take power from an entrenched ruling party must possess structures reaching deep into the remotest communities. It needs identifiable leadership, ideological coherence, organisational discipline and a programme that ordinary Nigerians can understand. It requires competent candidates capable of attracting voters beyond elite political circles. Above all, it needs a national narrative sufficiently compelling to persuade Nigerians that it represents not merely another gathering of prominent politicians seeking access to power, but a credible alternative government capable of running Nigeria differently.
The ADC cannot, therefore, afford to dismiss Osun as a local setback or electoral fluke. Seventeen thousand votes in such an intensely contested election constitute a warning. The party has only a limited period in which to transform itself from an assemblage of prominent personalities, some carrying grievances from previous political platforms, into a functioning electoral machine with nationwide organisation, cohesion, purpose and acceptance.
But if Osun represents bad news for the ADC, its implications for the APC may be even more consequential. The APC is not an aspiring political movement. It is the party controlling the Federal Government and has been in power nationally since 2015. It entered the Osun contest with the considerable political advantages that accompany possession of federal power, formidable structures throughout the South West and the prestige of having a President who comes from the region. Yet after an intensely contested election, its candidate still lost by more than sixty-six thousand votes.
For President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, this outcome cannot simply be shrugged off. Osun lies within the South West, the region regarded as the historic heartland of President Tinubu’s political influence. But even before the 2026 governorship election, Osun had demonstrated its capacity to resist the gravitational pull of his formidable political machine. In the 2023 presidential election, Atiku Abubakar defeated Tinubu in the state. That result should already have demonstrated an enduring truth about democratic politics: ethnic affinity or regional identification does not automatically translate into electoral allegiance.
The latest governorship result reinforces the point. President Tinubu may remain the most formidable political personality in the South West today, but no politician, however accomplished, should confuse influence with ownership of an electorate. Ultimately, the ballot belongs to the voter. There is, however, an important qualification. Adeleke’s victory should not automatically be interpreted as an outright anti Tinubu referendum. The governor indicated during the campaign that his political camp supported President Tinubu’s re election ambition. Whether this was tactical, strategic or genuinely reflective of the preferences of his supporters, it complicates any simplistic reading of the election. A voter can support Adeleke for governor and still vote differently in a presidential election. That distinction is important.
What Osun more clearly repudiates is the assumption that federal incumbency by itself can deliver a state. The election demonstrates the continuing importance of local popularity, grassroots organisation, incumbency at state level and the ability of candidates to establish direct relationships with their electorates. Indeed, Adeleke’s victory raises a fascinating question about the continuing personalisation of Nigerian politics.
Accord was hardly one of the dominant political platforms in Osun before Adeleke moved into it.
He had originally been elected governor on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), yet appears to have carried a substantial part of his political constituency with him when he changed platforms. The implication is profound. Increasingly, the politician sometimes seems to create the party rather than the party creating the politician.
This should worry both the APC and the ADC. It suggests that party labels alone may prove increasingly insufficient as Nigeria approaches 2027. Voters will examine candidates, personalities, local alliances, economic circumstances, regional calculations, grievances and their own peculiar experiences. Loyalty to political parties may prove far less rigid than politicians assume, particularly where voters believe that their material circumstances have deteriorated.
There is another reason the APC especially should study Osun carefully. The greatest danger facing a long established political machine is often not the strength of its opponents but its own confidence in the permanence of arrangements that once guaranteed victory. Political influence can gradually become political mythology. Structures that appear formidable from Abuja may prove weaker at polling units. Elite endorsements may conceal popular resentment. Large rallies may create impressions of invincibility while silently dissatisfied voters wait for election day to revolt.
The importance of political intelligence is precisely to detect these contradictions before they become electoral catastrophes. That was one of the lessons I learnt from my involvement in the 2023 electoral process. Political leaders need people around them who are prepared to report what the public is actually saying, not merely what those in power would prefer to hear. Osun therefore presents a warning to the APC against political self deception.
The ADC also should ask why a party aspiring to national power could poll so poorly. The APC should in turn ask why federal incumbency, formidable resources and regional political pedigree were insufficient to secure victory. Accord, meanwhile, should resist the temptation to assume that Adeleke’s victory suddenly makes it a national political force. Much of its success appears inseparable from the governor’s personality, incumbency and established local structure.
There is consequently something in Osun for everyone to ponder. But perhaps the most consequential lesson lies beyond the parties themselves. Elections take place within a given social and economic environment. Voters do not leave hunger, insecurity, unemployment, declining incomes and frustration at home when they approach the polling booth. Their political choices are ultimately shaped by the conditions under which they live. And it is precisely here that the Osun phenomenon begins to acquire potentially national significance. For while all politics may indeed be local, the economic hardship confronting Nigerians today is anything but local.
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