Ademola Adeleke Defeats APC’s Bola Oyebamiji to Win Second Term in Osun

Senator Ademola Jackson Adeleke of the Accord Party has been declared winner of the 2026 Osun State governorship election, securing a second four-year term after a tightly contested race that kept the state glued to the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal from Saturday night into Sunday morning.

A former senator and seasoned politician, Adeleke first won the Osun governorship in 2022 under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). He defected to the Accord Party in December 2025, citing its welfare-driven philosophy as aligned with his administration’s focus on citizens’ and workers’ wellbeing. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) formally announced his victory at the collation centre in Osogbo on Sunday, 16 August 2026.

Adeleke won by topping the vote count across 19 of Osun’s 30 local government areas, according to INEC’s collated results. His closest rival, Bola Oyebamiji of the All Progressives Congress (APC), carried 11 LGAs. The State Returning Officer, Prof. Joshua Ogunwole, declared the result at about 7:24 am on Sunday. By 8:02 am, INEC had uploaded 3,695 of 3,763 polling unit results to the IReV portal — 98.19 per cent of the total.

According to reports from the collation centre, Adeleke polled 511,067 votes to emerge winner. Bola Oyebamiji (APC) came second with 444,815 votes, while Najeem Salaam of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) was a distant third with 17,180 votes. INEC data showed 1,010,684 accredited voters, with 1,005,800 votes cast and 985,079 valid votes recorded across the 30 LGAs.

Ademola Adeleke has secured a second term as Osun State governor after…