51.9%, Not 55%: Reading the Real Margin Behind Adeleke's Osun Win
Najeem Salaam has represented Ejigbo in one form or another for most of his political life — Speaker of the Osun State House of Assembly, a former governor of the state, a name Ejigbo voters have had decades to get to know. On Sunday, Ejigbo voted for someone else.
Adeleke's Accord Party carried Salaam's own local government, Tribune Online reported, leaving the ADC candidate beaten at home before the statewide numbers were even finished. A candidate who cannot carry his own backyard is a candidate whose statewide total was probably never going to be close.
It was not. Salaam finished third statewide with 17,180 votes — about 1.7 percent of the 985,079 valid ballots cast, per INEC's final figures. That is the number behind Sunday's declaration that has drawn the least attention. It deserves more, because it is the clearest evidence of how this race actually broke.
What the survey got wrong
Two weeks before Osun voted, a joint survey by Iterative Learning for Development and the Kimpact Development Initiative modelled a winner clearing at least 55 percent of the vote, with the runner-up held below 35 — a considerably wider gap than the roughly 52-48 split that decided the 2022 race.
The actual result landed short of that forecast. Adeleke's 511,067 votes worked out to roughly 51.9 percent of the valid total; Oyebamiji's 444,815 came to about 45.2 percent. Wider than 2022, yes — but nowhere near the blowout the survey's model had priced in.
The pre-election model: a winner above 55 percent, a runner-up below 35. The actual result: 51.9 percent to 45.2 percent.
Nineteen LGAs, not a clean sweep
The local government map tells a similar story of a solid win rather than a rout. Adeleke carried 19 of Osun's 30 local government areas to Oyebamiji's 11, per Legit.ng's breakdown — comfortably clearing the constitutional two-thirds threshold, but not the kind of map where the opposition simply disappears. Oyebamiji's camp held Obokun and Atakunmosa West, among others, TVC News reported — evidence of real, organised APC strength in specific pockets of the state rather than a token opposition presence.
Where Salaam's backing went missing
Atiku Abubakar's presence at the ADC's campaign finale in Osogbo on August 10 was meant to signal that Salaam's bid carried national weight, with the former vice president personally urging Osun voters to entrust the party with the state. Whatever that endorsement was worth on the campaign trail, it barely registered in the count.
A former Speaker and former governor, backed by a sitting national opposition heavyweight, could not hold his own local government — let alone challenge for the state. Spread across 30 local government areas and a field of 15 parties, Salaam's 17,180 votes amounted to a rounding error in a race that, in the end, only ever had two real contenders.
Turnout did the rest
The other quiet factor behind Sunday's number is how few people actually decided it. Of the 2,339,233 Osun residents on the voter roll, and the 1,906,390 who held a PVC, only around 1,005,800 ballots were cast — turnout of roughly 43 percent of registered voters. A margin can look emphatic in percentage terms while still resting on well under half the electorate showing up.
None of that makes Sunday's declaration less official. Adeleke cleared the vote threshold, cleared the LGA threshold, and won by a wider margin than he did in 2022. But "decisive," on the actual numbers, means something more modest than the pre-election forecasts suggested: a solid win, built on unspectacular turnout, against an opposition that held its ground in enough LGAs to matter and a third-place challenger whose national backing never translated into local votes.
The survey called a blowout. Osun delivered a win — clear, comfortable, and about four points short of one.
