It’s stale news that Governor Ademola Adeleke of Osun State defeated 14 other candidates to win the just-held August 15, 2026 off-cycle governorship election in my state – the State of the Living Spring! This brings to an end the roller coaster of eight off-cycle governorship polls that started in 2023 with Bayelsa, Kogi, and Imo, followed by Edo and Ondo in 2024, then Anambra in 2025, and lastly Ekiti and Osun in 2026. In the lead-up to last Saturday’s poll, I have had countless media interviews across print and broadcast outlets. Not only that, as a psephologist, I had the good fortune to conduct a pre-election assessment for The Kukah Centre in Osun in February this year and to return in April to validate our report.
I am happy that the Independent National Electoral Commission was able to conduct a conclusive and successful Osun governorship poll, but was the election free, fair and credible? Yes, people’s votes counted in the incumbent’s re-election, but at what cost? Readers, INEC just conducted the most expensive off-cycle governorship election in Nigeria! What do I mean? Let’s look at the numbers. I mean the financial cost of each of the actors and stakeholders in the election.
Starting with the INEC, the commission had to print ballot papers and result sheets twice because of the July 22 order of the Federal High Court, Abuja, that the candidate of the Social Democratic Party, previously rejected, should be enlisted on the ballot paper. This court order came after INEC had already printed all the sensitive materials. Thus, in compliance with the order, it had to discard over two million ballot papers and thousands of result sheets and hasten to reprint them. Luckily, the Commission’s printers are in Nigeria. I think it is high time INEC owns its own printing press rather than outsourcing its printing work. There should also be a deadline for adjudication of pre-election matters, as it is with post-election litigation.
It is either INEC puts all registered political parties’ names and logos on the ballot paper or customises it by putting those of all contesting parties, even if there’s litigation on some of the candidates. The cost of reprinting the Osun ballot paper will be very high because it’s emergency work. However, it’s good that INEC obeyed the court order; otherwise, Governor Adeleke’s victory could be nullified by the tribunal on what is known in election management as “lawful nomination and unlawful exclusion”.
It happened before in 2007 in an FCT senatorial election where the Progressive Action Congress challenged INEC for unlawful exclusion in a senatorial election. The five-member tribunal, headed by Justice Josephine Tukturin, in October 2007 nullified the election of Sen. Jubrin Wowo of the All Nigeria Peoples Party and ordered fresh elections within three months. They said PAC candidate in the election, Isa Ndako, was wrongfully excluded from participating in the election by INEC. It’s interesting to note that ANPP lost the rerun election as the People’s Democratic Party candidate eventually won.
Aside the reprinting issue, considering the recruitment, training and deployment of over 30,000 ad-hoc staff as well as mobilisation of 30 electoral officers, 15 resident electoral commissioners and seven national commissioners to provide supervisory role for the election, the engagement of hundreds of members of National Union of Road Transport Workers to provide transport logistics, the cost of setting up the registration area centre with beddings, water and light; these are at huge cost. Gargantuan cost must have also been incurred to conduct continuous voter registration, printing and distribution of permanent voters cards, voters dducation and hosting of stakeholders’ meetings.
Let’s go to the political parties and contestants. Huge cost was expended in the purchase of Expression of Interest and Nomination Forms by aspirants; political parties must have also spent princely sums to organise party primaries to nominate their candidates. In the course of the 150 days of campaigns, billions were expended majorly by the frontline candidates. Governor Adeleke, who defected from PDP to the Accord Party in December 2025, must have spent a lot of resources to turn an obscure political party into a vibrant and competitive brand. There are over 300 wards in Osun, 30 LGAs and one area office; the Accord Party suddenly, in a few months, rented functional offices in all of these political structures and became a party to reckon with its thumb logo and yellow colour. Definitely, it’s not the party members who are known not to pay membership dues who funded that in a short while. The governor also had to campaign across all the wards and local government areas. For a party without any governor or any high-profile elected chieftains, the onus must have been on Adeleke to pick up the bills alongside other decampee lawmakers from PDP in Osun State.
The All Progressives Congress candidate in the election, Asiwaju Bola Oyebamiji, better known as AMBO, claimed he campaigned thrice around all the wards in Osun State. He didn’t campaign alone. He had an entourage. He must have ‘Nicodemusly’ received hefty donations from President Bola Tinubu and the 276-member campaign council headed by Gov. Hope Uzodinma of Imo State. Music Icon, Davido’s father, Dr Deji Adeleke, claimed in a viral video that he learnt APC must have spent about N60bn and that the party bought votes to the tune of N50,000 per vote. These are unverified claims, though.
It’s important to add to the expenses the cost of deploying 15,000 police personnel, 30 Commissioners of Police and a Deputy Inspector General of Police; the cost of deploying over 10,000 Nigerian Civil Defence personnel and other security agencies. Not only that, there is a need to compute the expenses of Non-Governmental Organisations that deployed thousands of accredited observers. We must not forget to compute the cost incurred by media organisations that organised town hall meetings and deployed accredited journalists to cover the elections without government support. Lastly, what about the cost of litigation in pre-election matters? If any of the 15 contestants decide to go to the election tribunal, we would also have to include that cost too. Sincerely, it will be difficult to put a particular figure to how much was spent by actors and stakeholders on the Osun governorship election.
As I have highlighted above, the financial cost of the Osun guber election pales into insignificance when compared to the cost of over thirty lives that were lost to the pre-election violence in the state. It’s heartbreaking and preposterous that so many fatalities were recorded in a power tussle to purportedly ‘serve’ the people. Many relationships – family ties and friendships have been strained or broken as a result of this election, as members of the same family supported different candidates and made enemies of one another, which should not be so. The financial, social and political cost of last Saturday’s election in Osun is unbearable and not sustainable. It’s time for introspection!
I.G: @jideojong
