The Digital Mirage: What Osun 2026 Reveals About the Gap Between Online Noise and Electoral Reality – InsideBusiness

The re-election of Governor Ademola Adeleke was a high-profile as elections come in Nigeria with the dominant narrative being that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) was hell-bent on taking the state. The political emotions aside though, the Osun 2026 governorship election invites us to take a second look at the entire political communication around the event.

 Adeleke, who contested on the platform of the Accord Party, won 19 of Osun’s 30 local government areas against 11 by the APC’s) Bola Oyebamiji. The African Democratic Congress (ADC’s) Najeem Salaam finished a dismal third with just 17,180 votes, winning no local government whatsoever .

Taken at face value, the 511,067 votes recorded by Adeleke, against the 444,815 polled by Oyebamiji, might look like a straightforward electoral victory. However, lying deep under the numbers is a more complex story that questions our collective understanding of the contestations between digital political communication and actual electoral outcomes.

The abject failure and demystification of Rauf Aregbesola is probably the best illustration of such a gap – his performance brutally reminding us thyat the former Osun governor, now National Secretary of the ADC and his online activities carried no weight at all. At Polling Unit 001, Coop. Building Junction, Isare, Ward 08, in Ilesa East Local Government Area, APC’s Oyebamiji secured 256 votes; Adeleke 3 votes; against Aregbesola’s own ADC candidate, Najeem Salaam who managed just 13 votes . At another polling unit close to his family compound, the pattern repeated: APC recorded 202, Accord 110, ADC 12 . The local government result was no kinder to Aregbesola with the ADC polling just 504 votes in Ilesa East, finishing third behind APC’s 16,208 and Accord’s 12,280 .

At this point, we should…