•Defeats Oyebamiji, 10 APC govs, who came to campaign for him • Aregbesola, Oyinlola lose polling units • APC’s candidate hails large turnout of voters Dike Onwuamaeze, Sunday Ehigiator in Lagos and Yinka Kolawole in Osogbo Governor Ademola Adeleke of Osun State was comfortably leading his opponents in yesterday’s governorship election held in the state as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) commenced the collation of the results of the poll. As at 2.06a.m. this morning, INEC had uploaded the results of the election in 3,612 polling units (PUs), representing 95.99 per cent of the 3,763 PUs in the state to the commission’s Result Viewing Portal (IReV). With only 151 PUs remaining, Adeleke, who is the candidate of the Accord Party (AP), polled 509,057 or 51.7per cent of the votes uploaded on IReV, leading the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Munirudeen Bola Oyebamiji, with over 80,000 votes. The APC candidate got 425,879 votes, representing 43.2per cent of the votes uploaded to IReV. The candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Najeem Salaam, scored 1.8 per cent with 17,393 votes. According to the results uploaded to IReV, Adeleke was leading in 21 Local Government Areas (LGAs), while Oyebamiji was leading in the remaining nine LGAs. Adeleke defeated Oyebamiji and about 10 APC governors, who campaigned for him. Senate President, Senator Godswill Akpabio and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, also campaigned for the APC candidate. Some of the governors who campaigned for him include: Senator Hope Uzodimma of Imo State, Senator Monday Okpebholo of Edo State; Usman Ododo of Kogi State, AbdulRahman AbdulRasaq of Kwara State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State, Biodun Oyebanji of Ekiti State, Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State, Mai Mala Buni of Yobe State and Lucky Aiyedatiwa. The Delta State governor was represented by his deputy, Monday Onyeme. INEC had disclosed that 207 of the 3,763 polling units in the state experienced ‘minor’ delays in opening for yesterday’s governorship election. The governorship election held across the 30 LGAs in the state, was a two-horse race between the incumbent Governor Adeleke and the candidate of the APC, Oyebamiji, although other candidates were also in the race. Although the election was not bloody despite the tension it generated, there were pockets of violence, alleged cases of vote-buying, sporadic shootings and intimidation of voters. Meanwhile, a former governor of the state and the National Secretary of the ADC, Mr. Rauf Aregbesola, and a former deputy governor of the state and ex-National Secretary of the APC, Senator Iyiola Omisore, lost their polling units to APC, and Accord Party, respectively. Accord Party polled 131 votes at Omisore’s PU 003, Ife Ward 1, Moore, St. Gabriel Primary School, Ife East LGA. APC finished second with 85 votes, while ADC got 10 votes. Other parties recorded marginal votes. Similarly, at Aregbesola’s PU001, Cooperative Building Junction, Isare, Ward 08, Ilesa East LGA, where Aregbesola voted, the APC’s governorship candidate, Oyebamiji, secured 256 votes to come top there. Governor Adeleke came second with 43 votes, while ADC’s candidate, Najeem Salaam, came third with 13 votes. Before the commission began the results collation, it had stopped the uploading the results to its IReV after it had uploaded the results of 3,292 polling units (PUs) out of the 3,763PUs in the state, representing 87.48 per cent of the results. This had fuelled an allegation by Adeleke’s Imole Campaign Council (ICC), which raised the alarm that there was an alleged plot by lNEC to declare the governorship election inconclusive. Afrobeats star, David Adeleke, popularly known as Davido, also questioned INEC over the delay in uploading results of its IReV. Davido, who was closely monitoring the election process, raised the concern in a post on his X account, saying: “INEC IREV uploads have been stuck for almost 2 hours now. 3292 out of 3763 results submitted and then silence. This is not acceptable! “Why has the uploading stopped? @inecnigeria” However, the commission resumed the uploading of the results to IReV after several hours. 207 Polling Units Experienced Delays, Says INEC INEC had earlier confirmed that 207 of the 3,763 polling units in the state experienced ‘minor’ delays in opening for the election. According to an election situation report shared by the commission on its official X handle, 3,556 polling units, representing 94.5 per cent of the total, had opened by 8:30am. INEC said the remaining 207 polling units, representing 5.5 per cent, were delayed but became oper
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