On Saturday July 16, 2022, Osun State electorate went to the polls to elect their next governor in what can be termed a “mid-term” election. It was the second of such polls conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) after that of Ekiti State in just about a month earlier.
The Osun governorship election took place in 3763 polling units across 332 wards of 30 local government areas of the state with 15 political parties participating. The state has 1, 955, 657 registered voters against 1,600, 000 in the 2018 election. Unfortunately, however, there were 377, 807 uncollected Permanent Voter Cards by June, 2022.
Some of the governorship candidates are Akinade Akanmu Ogunbiyi, 59, and his deputy, Jimoh Mukailu Adekunle, 61 of the Accord Party, the incumbent governor Adegboyega Isiaka Oyetola, 67, and his deputy Benedict Olugboyega Alabi, 56, of All Progressives Congress (APC), Yusuf Sulaiman Lasun, 61, Adeola Adekunle Atanda, 53, Labour Party (LP); Adeleke Ademola Jackson Nurudeen, 61, and his deputy, Adewusi Kola Adegboyega, 62, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Omigbodun Oyegoke Akinrinola, 58, and his deputy Oni Mukaila Adesoye, 66, Social Democratic Party (SDP).
In the morning of Sunday July 17, 2022, INEC Chief Returning Officer for the state, Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, announced victory for the PDP candidate, Senator Ademola Adeleke, who scored 403, 371 votes. The incumbent governor, Gboyega Oyetola of the All Progressives Congress (APC), polled 375, 027 votes.
Though, many observers described the election as free of violence but characterised by vote buying.
Senator Adeleke will be sworn in on November 27, 2022.
However, on the whole, the Osun election was much peaceful than previous exercises though there were minute disruptions that didn’t affect the general harmony of the polls. This didn’t come without massive planning by INEC, security agencies and the good conduct of the electorate.
We salute the resilience of the electoral organization and all concern for the outcome of the election that is generally without serious incident that would call the exercise to question.
While we savor in the success of the Osun governorship election, we implore the same institutions and the electorate to put on the same performance in 2023 general elections.
