Osun has once again demonstrated that Nigerian politics is less about permanent friendships than temporary arithmetic. In the space of one electoral cycle, yesterday’s allies became today’s adversaries, former adversaries discovered new reasons to cooperate, political parties changed candidates and candidates changed parties without necessarily losing their political structures.
When the votes were finally counted, Ademola Adeleke had won a second term, but the more revealing story was how he won it: by navigating shifting loyalties, old grudges, new alliances and the ever-present shadow of 2027.
There was, however, another player in the election that did not appear on the ballot: the state of the Nigerian economy. Voters do not live in party headquarters; they live in households, markets, farms and offices, judging politics against the daily price of food, transport, electricity and other necessities. That may be one of the most important messages from Osun for the All Progressives Congress (APC) as 2027 approaches.
The Election Behind the Election
On the surface, the result was straightforward. Adeleke, running on the Accord platform, defeated APC candidate Bola Oyebamiji, winning 19 of the state’s 30 local government areas, while the ADC’s Najeem Salaam came a distant third.
But Osun 2026 was never simply Accord versus APC. The APC’s defeat then was aided by internal fractures, particularly the bitter estrangement between the camps of former governor Rauf Aregbesola and Gboyega Oyetola. Four years later, those political histories continued to cast long shadows.
Aregbesola was now associated with the African Democratic Congress, while Oyebamiji emerged as the APC candidate. Meanwhile, Adeleke demonstrated one of the peculiarities of Nigerian politics: changing a party does not necessarily mean abandoning one’s political structure. Although he contested under Accord, significant PDP interests in the state rallied behind him. The PDP itself did not present a candidate. This was politics as network rather than ideology.
The APC understood the danger and attempted to reconcile its factions. But reports after the election suggested that some internal grievances remained unresolved and that some party stakeholders were reluctant to mobilise fully for Oyebamiji. The lesson is an old one, but Nigerian parties repeatedly rediscover it at great electoral cost: a party can possess an impressive national structure and still lose a state if its local political family is divided.
The Economy Was Also on the Ballot
It would be a mistake to explain APC’s defeat entirely through Osun’s internal political arithmetic. There was an economic undercurrent to the election that should concern the ruling party.
The current administration has legitimate economic achievements to point to. Inflation has fallen considerably from the extraordinarily high levels that followed the initial phase of the administration’s reforms; the government points to stronger growth, improved foreign-exchange stability and increased investor confidence.
The problem is that macroeconomic improvement and household experience are not the same thing. Many households continue to struggle with food, transport, fuel and other essential costs. This is where politics becomes dangerous for an incumbent government.
A government may correctly say that inflation has fallen. The voter may correctly respond that prices are still far higher than they were before the crisis. The government may point to improved foreign-exchange liquidity. The trader may respond that imported goods remain expensive. The government may cite GDP growth. The unemployed graduate asks where the job is.
Elections, however, are ultimately decided by the voter who asks not whether the economy is improving statistically, but whether his or her life is improving.
That distinction appears to have mattered in Osun, in a particularly difficult political environment before 2027. The greater political danger is that economic pain can turn an election into a judgement on the entire governing establishment. Voters may not separate federal reform from state-level performance when the same party controls both levels. In that circumstance, every increase in household costs becomes politically relevant, regardless of which tier of government caused it. This is especially important in an off-cycle election, where the ruling party cannot rely on the momentum of a presidential contest to pull its candidates along.
Adeleke won because he had a formidable political organisation, incumbency, a recognisable personal brand and an opposition that was not sufficiently united not forgetting a global music icon, Davido. But the economic mood made the APC’s task harder.
Adeleke’s Victory and the Politics of Separation
Adeleke’s most impressive achievement was his ability to make the election sufficiently about Adeleke and Osun, rather than APC versus the opposition.
The President remained politically relevant to the contest. He congratulated Adeleke after the result and urged him to unite the state, while the President’s supporters had hoped the election would demonstrate the APC’s strength in one of its most important political regions.
Adeleke managed to maintain a degree of political separation between his state-level contest and the national political contest ahead of 2027.
Nigerian voters are perfectly capable of making different choices at different levels. A voter can support Tinubu for President and Adeleke for governor, or vice versa. Party identification is increasingly elastic, especially when candidates have strong personal networks.
The warning signal is that the APC could not convert the considerable advantages of incumbency at the federal level, presidential influence and party machinery into victory in a state that should have been highly competitive. That points to a broader problem: political capital at the centre does not automatically translate into votes at the grassroots.
The 2027 Warning
Osun therefore offers at least four lessons for 2027.
First, internal cohesion will matter more than political grandstanding. The APC can win a national election and still suffer damaging losses if its state structures are consumed by primaries, succession battles and factional grievances.
Second, economic performance will be judged at the kitchen-table level. Falling inflation is good news; it becomes politically meaningful only when citizens feel an improvement in purchasing power. If the economy continues to improve on paper without a corresponding improvement in household welfare, the political dividend may be disappointingly small.
Third, alliances are becoming more fluid. Adeleke’s journey from PDP to Accord, the shifting relationships around Aregbesola and Oyetola, and the realignments around the ADC demonstrate that politicians are increasingly willing to cross traditional party boundaries. The party that wins in 2027 may therefore be the party or coalition that manages these networks most effectively.
Fourth, off-cycle elections are laboratories for the general election. Osun has shown what happens when incumbency, personality, local structures, national economic sentiment and opposition fragmentation collide.
For the opposition, it is equally a warning. The ADC and other emerging formations may attract prominent politicians, but prominence is not the same as electoral structure. And for Adeleke, victory brings its own obligation. A second term removes the excuse of unfinished business. He must now demonstrate that the political energy that delivered victory can be converted into better governance, jobs, infrastructure and a more productive state economy. That, ultimately, is the larger significance of Osun 2026.
The election was about alliances, but it was also about anxiety. It was about political loyalties, but also about livelihoods. It was about old rivalries, but also about a generation of voters asking increasingly impatient questions about what government actually does for them.
The politicians may have been counting alliances. The voters were counting the cost of living. And that is perhaps the most important number the politicians should carry from Osun into 2027.
The views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Law & Society Magazine.
