OSUN AS HARBINGER OF 2027 ELECTIONS

Nick Dazang 

The Osun State Off-Cycle Governorship Election scheduled for Saturday, 15th August 2026, brings the rear to the series of such elections. In this league of off-cycle governorship elections are: Kogi, Imo, Bayelsa, Edo, Ondo, Anambra and Ekiti States.

Though these off-cycle governorship elections were court-ordered, and were informed by the overarching need to correct the failings of our elections, they have turned out, not only as blessings, but God-sends, to our checkered electoral process.

Their coming, off the election season, have enabled the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) to test its processes and innovations, engaged its Staff through out the Electoral Cycle(pre-, during and after elections), and honed these processes and innovations ahead of each General Election. This has been the practice since 2011.

Its being the last in the catalog does not relegate the Osun State Off-Cycle Governorship Election to the backwater. Instead, it puts it, perhaps in the most pivotal and propitious position to proffer unique insights into how the 2027 General Elections will be conducted. Its close proximity to the 2027 General Elections, ineluctably, makes it a subject of the greatest scrutiny.

Unlike the other off-cycle governorship elections, the Osun one is probably the most keenly and fiercely contested. And unlike the others, the Osun election is often, at least, a two-horse race. In one instance, it was a three-horse contest.

In 2018, Ademola Adeleke, then of the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) scored 254,698 votes while his closest rival, Gboyega Oyetola, of the All Progressives Congress(APC), garnered 254,345 votes. Since the total number of cancelled votes in that election was 3,498 and it exceeded the margin of 345 votes between the two candidates, a return could not be made at the first ballot. Translation: the election was inconclusive. Even in 2022, the contest was close: Adeleke scored 403,371 votes against Oyetola’s 375,027.

This year’s off-cycle governorship election is guaranteed to be hotly contested: An opposition political party is pitched against a governing party at the center. The campaign has been electric. And the Osun political space has been both charged and tense.

As in the recently conducted Ekiti State Off-Cycle Governorship Election, there are more female voters than their male counterparts. Out of a total of 2,339,233 registered voters, 1,234,769, representing 52.79%, are of the female gender while 1,104,464 are of the male gender.

What is thrilling about the election is that for the first time, in the annals of off-cycle governorship elections, candidates of the female gender are not content merely with playing second fiddle. Out of the fourteen(14) candidates contesting, one is of the female gender. This is a remarkable departure. It should embolden other members of the female gender who have since been driven to the margins of our politics.

Students constitute 752,800 of the registered voters, representing a healthy 32.18% while artisans make up 320.416 of the registered voters, representing 13.70%. Gleaned together, the demography shows clearly that the election is going to be determined largely by youths who constitute 857,056 of the registered voters, representing 36.64%.
Salutary as the emergence of a female candidate in the Osun State Off-Cycle Governorship Election may be to the electoral process, the lead up to the election has been defined by violence and tension.

The tension was so palpable, and the violence was so concerning, that even before the General Abdulsalami Abubakar-led National Peace Committee(NPC) made the political parties and their candidates on Thursday, 30th August 2026, to commit themselves and their followers to peaceful conduct during the election, the Osun Development Association(ODA), had convened a one-day peace summit two weeks prior.

The Association said it was deeply concerned over political violence, destruction of campaign materials and tension in the State.

Even the Election Management Body(EMB), namely INEC, was not spared the violence that framed the activities leading to the election. Gun-toting hoodlums snatched Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) and Bimodal Voter Accreditation System(BVAS) devices at a collection center at Oyinlola DC(Ward 2) in Okuku, Odo-Otin Local Government Area.

The charged atmosphere was not helped by the arrest of members of the opposition, some of whom were alleged to have been detained in jurisdictions outside Osun State.

Even though the violence and tension that characterized the campaign season may not rear their ugly heads during the conduct of the election, the arrests carried out by the Police impose a greater need for professionalism on their part. Stakeholders will be looking out to see whether the security agencies will carry themselves with neutrality and impartiality.

The mock election conducted by INEC on Saturday, 1st August 2026, in four Local Government Areas each of the three Senatorial Districts of the State, was revealing. Not a few glitches visited the BVAS devices. It is reassuring that apart from 4,427 BVAS devices that are to be deployed across 3,763 polling units for the election, there is a back-up of 1,328 copies, representing 15%. Nonetheless, the Commission’s Registration Area Technical Support Staff(RATECHS) need to up their game in trouble-shooting glitches that are most likely to occur during the election. Besides, the increasing number of glitches are a clear manifestation that the BVAS are aging and that they are losing their shelf lives.

This means that some of the devices will need to be replaced outright, with new ones, before the 2027 General Elections.
Stakeholders will also be looking, with eagle eyes, at the new forms vote trading, which has menaced our elections, will assume. In Ekiti, it took the shape of digital transfers. At some polling units, names were harvested, and mysterious lists drawn, ostensibly, with a view to paying off voters who compromised their franchises.

The Osun election is certainly the most testy and crucial in the genre of off-cycle governorship contests. It will once more provide us with an opportunity to test the Electoral Act 2026 as well as provide us with a clearer picture of how the 2027 General Elections will turn out. We wait with bated breath.