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By Paul Dada It was expected to be a titanic battle. And so it was. It was predicted to be a two-horse race. And so it was. The 2026 Osun governorship election was a fierce battle between Governor Ademola Adeleke of the Accord Party and the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Bola Oyebamiji. Forget about the other 11 candidates. They had no weight to pull. They were no real contenders. Call them pretenders and you will not be wrong. Related News In that contest, Adeleke emerged with a considerably stronger mandate, winning a second term and widening the gap between himself and the APC. At the time the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared the result on August 16, Adeleke had polled 511,067 votes against Oyebamiji’s 444,815, giving the incumbent a winning margin of 66,252 votes. Adeleke also won 19 of the state’s 30 local government areas, while Oyebamiji secured 11. There is something about the figures. They tell an important story. Adeleke did not merely retain power. There was a substantial improvement on his 2022 performance. Four years ago, he defeated the then incumbent, Gboyega Oyetola, by 28,344 votes. In 2026, his margin more than doubled to 66,252 votes. His personal vote total also rose from 403,371 in 2022 to 511,067. This was an increase of 107,696 votes. Incumbency and the power of performance  Inarguably, one of Adeleke’s biggest advantages was incumbency. Unlike in 2022, when he was challenging an APC government, he went into this election asking voters to judge what he had done in office. In his campaign he repeatedly pointed to projects and policies in infrastructure, education, healthcare, agriculture and workers’ welfare. Adeleke framed the election as a referendum on his administration, while the opposition sought to convince voters that his record had been overstated. That strategy appears to have worked for the governor. After his victory, he said voters had effectively told him that his administration had delivered “dividends of democracy in terms of agriculture, infrastructure, improving our education and so forth”. In that context, the election became more than a contest between two personalities. It also became a choice between continuity and change, with Adeleke successfully persuading a larger section of the electorate to stay with his administration. The Ede factor ...