On Saturday, 2,339,233 eligible voters, according to the updated final voter register presented by INEC, will file out across 332 wards in the 30 local government areas of Osun State to elect a new governor.
The voters, spread across 3,763 polling units, have a choice to either re-elect incumbent governor Ademola Adeleke of the Accord Party (AP) or choose another from the pool of candidates fielded by the All Progressives Congress (APC), the African Democratic Congress (ADC), the Zenith Labour Party (ZLP), and 10 others.
In all, 14 political parties are participating in the election.
Although on the surface, the governorship tussle seems to be a two-horse race between Mr Adeleke and Bola Oyebamiji of the APC, a third dark horse is lurking in the corner: the ADC’s flagbearer. The ADC is considered by many in the state as the third force, given the status and relevance of its major backer in the state, Rauf Aregbesola, who governed the state between 2010 and 2018, first on the platform of the defunct ACN, and then the APC, which he helped found in 2013.
Mr Aregbesola was a pillar of the APC in Osun State until a bitter struggle for the control of the party in the state with his successor, Gboyega Oyetola, on one hand, and his estranged political godfather, President Bola Tinubu, on the other hand, made him part ways with the party in July 2025, before emerging as the national secretary of the ADC. By the way, Mr Aregbesola continues to claim that he and his supporters were forced out of the APC in the state.
