Felix Onyeka
Governor Ademola Adeleke has been re-elected for a second term as governor of Osun State.
Adeleke, the candidate of Accord, was declared the winner of the election on Sunday morning, August 16, after an overnight collation of results in Osogbo, the state capital.
The state returning officer for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Joshua Ogunwole, said Adeleke secured 511,067 votes to defeat his closest challenger in the tightly contested governorship election.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate Bola Oyebamiji came second with a final vote tally of 444,815 votes, while Najeem Salaam, the candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), was a distant third with 17,180 votes.
Adeleke won in 19 local government areas while Oyebamiji was victorious in 11 LGAs.
The election took place under a cloud of apprehension and tension, given the violence and attacks reported in the preceding days.
However, despite the concerns, the election recorded a decent voter turnout, with large crowds overwhelming electoral officials in some polling units.
Although reports of election-related violence were minimal on Saturday, incidents of journalist harassment and disruptions to voting were recorded.
Voting started early in most parts of the state, but glitches with the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) devices delayed the conclusion in several polling units.
The election was also marred by documented instances of vote-buying and alleged intimidation of voters in parts of the state.
INEC must explain why 13% of Osun results took longer than first 87% – Peterside
Meanwhile, Nigerian businessman Atedo Peterside has asked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to explain why it’s taking longer to upload the final 13 per cent of polling unit results in the Osun State governorship election than it took to upload the first 87 per cent.
The demand came after INEC resumed uploading polling unit results to its Result Viewing Portal (IReV) following hours of inactivity on Saturday.
In a post on X in the early hours of Sunday, Peterside noted that results from 3,612 polling units had been uploaded at about 2 a.m. but questioned the delay in completing the process.
He wrote, “Dear @inecnigeria, thank you for releasing the results from 3,612 Polling Units in the #Osun Governorship Elections, i.e., 95.99% of the results, by 2 am approx. Please release the results of the remaining 151 Polling Units. We are still watching. We also believe you owe the nation an explanation as to why it took you longer to collate the last 13% of the results than it took to collate the first 87%. Was there a “glitch”?
Earlier on Saturday night, Peterside had raised concerns after uploads to the IReV portal stalled at 87.48 per cent for hours.
He posted on X, “Dear @inecnigeria, many of us have been monitoring your Osun Governorship Election result uploads on your IREV. Why have your uploads stopped at 87.48% for some hours now? If you could show us 3,292 Polling Unit Results with little or no alterations, why are you unable to show us the results from the remaining 471 Polling Units? It is now past 10 pm”
