Governor Ademola Adeleke has taken an early lead in the Osun State governorship election as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) commenced the collation of results from the 30 local government areas of the state.
Provisional figures uploaded to INEC’s Result Viewing Portal (IReV) showed Adeleke of the Accord Party ahead of his closest challenger, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Bola Oyebamiji.
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) candidate, Najeem Salaam, was in third position in the results available at the time of filing this report.
About 95 per cent of polling unit results had been uploaded to the IReV platform, with Adeleke recording leads in several local government areas, including Osogbo, Oriade, Iwo, Ede South, Ife North, Ife East and Irepodun.
In Ife North, results from 19 of the 111 polling units monitored showed Adeleke with 2,043 votes, while Oyebamiji polled 1,386 votes and Salaam secured 51 votes.
At Ipetumodu II Ward 7, Adeleke won 841 votes against Oyebamiji’s 446 and Salaam’s 21.
He also maintained his lead at Edunabon I Ward 2, where results from seven of the 11 polling units gave Adeleke 638 votes, compared with 496 for Oyebamiji and 15 for Salaam.
In Irepodun, Adeleke led in 28 polling units with 2,510 votes from the 133 polling unit results released on IReV.
The governor also recorded significant leads in other local government areas.
In Oriade, Adeleke polled 21,343 votes against Oyebamiji’s 14,863, while in Osogbo, he secured 36,480 votes compared with 30,474 votes recorded by the APC candidate.
Adeleke also led in Iwo with 27,085 votes against Oyebamiji’s 19,660, while in Ede South, he recorded 26,188 votes compared with 6,219 votes for the APC candidate.
The collation exercise followed a tense election marked by reports of vote-buying, malfunctioning of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and violence in some parts of the state.
Gunshots, alleged ballot-box snatching and attacks involving voters, party agents and election personnel were reported at different locations.
The major political parties subsequently traded accusations over the incidents, with each side raising concerns about the conduct of the election in some areas.
However, INEC continued with the collation of results from the 30 local government areas as of the time of filing this report.
The commission had yet to declare a final winner of the election.
(The Sun)
