Femi Akintunde-Johnson
Nigeria’s 2027 election may already have received one of its most useful lessons from Osun State, provided we are sufficiently wise to learn it. The lesson is not simply that Governor Ademola Adeleke won re-election, or that the All Progressives Congress candidate, Bola Oyebamiji, lost. It is that, even in a political environment increasingly saturated with money, intimidation, federal might, partisan machinery and the crude expectation that electoral victory can be manufactured from Abuja downwards, voters can still surprise the political establishment.
On Saturday, 15 August, 2026, Osun voters gave Adeleke 511,067 votes against Oyebamiji’s 444,815, a margin of 66,252. The African Democratic Congress candidate, Najeem Salaam, finished a distant third with 17,180 votes. The figures are important, but perhaps the larger story lies behind them: a state where political passions had been running high, where election-related violence had already claimed lives and where the contest had acquired the familiar Nigerian aroma of existential political warfare; nevertheless produced a result that, at least for now, has demonstrated the stubborn capacity of voters to frustrate expectations.
What, then, should the defeated opposition machinery learn? Perhaps the first lesson is that federal presence is not the same thing as electoral ownership. The APC went into Osun with considerable institutional weight and political reach. Yet, political machinery, however formidable, cannot permanently substitute for the voters themselves. A party may command impressive structures, deploy influential personalities, assemble enormous crowds and enjoy the confidence of powerful political actors; but, ultimately, the voter remains the person holding the ballot.
The Osun result should therefore be studied carefully by every political party preparing for 2027. Voters are not necessarily as predictable as political strategists imagine. They can listen to the most powerful campaigners, collect whatever inducements are offered, smile for the cameras, dance at rallies and still go into the privacy of the polling booth to make another decision. Nigerian politicians have long treated the electorate as an easily manipulated market. Osun suggests that the market may occasionally have a mind of its own.
And what should Adeleke learn from the result? Gratitude, certainly. Humility, preferably. And perhaps the most difficult lesson of all: that electoral affection is not a lifetime tenancy agreement. The voters have given him another mandate, but they have also given him a four-year examination paper. The fact that a large majority of participating voters stood with him should not be interpreted as a licence for complacency, extravagance or the sort of political self-adulation that eventually convinces governments that every criticism is sponsored by enemies.
Adeleke’s victory is also a reminder that personality matters in politics. His unconventional public persona, easy relationship with popular culture and obvious ability to connect with sections of the working-class and agrarian population may have helped create an emotional bond that conventional political arithmetic cannot fully explain. But affection is a fragile currency. The dancing governor must also remain the working governor. The entertainer must not eclipse the administrator. The popular man must still deliver the unpopular necessities of governance.
Then comes the more uncomfortable question: what did the voters themselves learn? Hopefully, they learnt that courage is possible. Reports preceding the election documented a troubling pattern of violence, with the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development’s tracker recording at least 34 election-related violent incidents and 18 deaths since May. That background makes the conduct of voters who still turned out to exercise their franchise all the more significant.
For decades, Nigerians have complained about political thuggery, ballot snatching, intimidation, vote buying and the weaponisation of poverty. Yet we sometimes behave as though these evils are unavoidable natural disasters rather than practices sustained by our own participation. We complain bitterly about bad politicians, then cheer when they arrive with envelopes. We denounce corruption, then ask what is in it for us. We condemn electoral manipulation, yet some voters are prepared to sell the very instrument with which they could punish it.
Osun offers another possibility: that voters can accept inducements without surrendering their conscience, reject intimidation without surrendering their franchise, and recognise that the small money received on election day may be a pathetic down-payment on four years of poor governance. A N10,000 gift from a politician who subsequently presides over billions of public funds is not empowerment. It is an unusually cheap purchase of public silence.
There is another lesson for 2027: voters must stop regarding elections as tribal, religious or partisan wars in which the candidate’s victory becomes more important than the citizen’s welfare. The politician will return to Abuja, Osogbo, Benin, Owerri, Kaduna, Lagos or wherever his or her political headquarters happens to be. The voter remains behind to confront the roads, schools, hospitals, electricity, employment, insecurity and rising cost of living.
The electoral umpire, too, should be studying Osun. INEC must understand that every successful election is not merely an event completed; it is an investment in public confidence. The upload of polling-unit results to the IReV portal was an important component of transparency, but electoral technology must work predictably, promptly and credibly, not become another source of anxiety. During the Osun exercise, thousands of results were uploaded as counting progressed, but any delay or technical uncertainty can quickly become ammunition for suspicion in an already distrustful environment.
Security agencies have an even larger lesson. Their responsibility is not to help any party win; it is to help citizens vote without fear. The reported violence surrounding the election should not be filed away as another Nigerian electoral anecdote. Every death, assault or intimidation is an attack on democracy itself. Political actors who recruit thugs and manufacture fear must be identified, prosecuted and, where guilt is established, punished. Otherwise, we will continue to invite citizens to vote while simultaneously warning them that voting may be hazardous to their health.
But perhaps the most important Osun lesson belongs to the rest of Nigeria. Can the courage displayed by many Osun voters travel beyond the state’s boundaries? Can it reach Ekiti, Lagos, Kano, Rivers, Kaduna, Enugu and every other corner of Nigeria before 2027? Can voters finally understand that the ballot is not a souvenir from politicians but their most consequential instrument of accountability?
We should not romanticise Osun. One election cannot suddenly cure Nigeria’s electoral maladies. The violence, inducements, intimidation and partisan calculations that preceded it remain real. Nor should Adeleke’s victory be interpreted as proof that every aspect of the election was perfect. The APC candidate has said he respects the process while supporting his party’s review of the outcome, which is a legitimate avenue in a democracy.
Still, something encouraging happened in Osun. Voters demonstrated that political power, despite all its intimidating machinery, can ultimately encounter something more stubborn: the independent judgement of citizens. That is the lesson politicians should fear most. And the lesson voters should cherish most.
If Osun becomes merely another isolated electoral story, we will have wasted it. But if its voters have shown the rest of us that courage can survive inducement, intimidation and political pressure, then perhaps the state has offered Nigeria something more valuable than a governor’s re-election. It may have offered us a glimpse of what a mature electorate looks like.