LESSON FROM ADELEKE’S SECOND TERM VICTORY 🗳️🇳🇬

The re-election of Governor Ademola Adeleke in the August 15, 2026 Osun State governorship election offers more than a victory story for the Accord Party. It is a political case study in incumbency, voter mobilisation, grassroots organisation, performance messaging and the ability of a candidate to expand his electoral coalition.Adeleke was declared winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission after polling 511,067 votes, defeating the All Progressives Congress candidate, Bola Oyebamiji, who scored 444,815 votes. The margin was 66,252 votes.The governor won 19 of Osun State’s 30 local government areas, while Oyebamiji won 11. The African Democratic Congress candidate, Najeem Salaam, came a distant third with 17,180 votes.The numbers become even more significant when compared with Adeleke’s first victory in 2022.In that election, Adeleke, then running on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, defeated the incumbent APC governor, Gboyega Oyetola, with 403,371 votes against 375,027, a winning margin of just 28,344 votes.Four years later, Adeleke increased his personal vote from 403,371 to 511,067, gaining 107,696 additional votes, an increase of almost 27 per cent.His opponent also improved on the APC’s previous performance, with Oyebamiji polling 444,815 votes. But Adeleke’s expansion was greater, and his winning margin more than doubled, from 28,344 votes in 2022 to 66,252 votes in 2026.That is perhaps the first major lesson from the election:Winning once is not the same as building a political base. Adeleke’s second term victory suggests that his political organisation had grown beyond the coalition that first brought him to office.FROM 17 LGAs TO 19In 2022, Adeleke won 17 of the state’s 30 local government areas, compared with Oyetola’s 13. In 2026, he expanded that to 19, while…