The Need To End Off-Cycle Elections: Osun 2026 Election As A Case Study

YOLA —By: Lucky A. Omonua

The dust has barely settled in Osogbo. On 15 August 2026, Osun State held its gubernatorial election, and INEC declared incumbent Governor Ademola Adeleke of ‘Accord Party’ the winner with 511,067 votes, ahead of APC’s Bola Oyebamiji with 444,815 votes and ADC’s Najeem Salaam with 17,180 votes. The victory keeps Adeleke in office for a second term.

But beyond who won or lost, the Osun poll has once again exposed a deeper rot in Nigeria’s electoral calendar: the damage caused by off-cycle gubernatorial elections. If we are serious about free, fair, credible and peaceful elections, Nigeria must merge all governorship elections and hold them on the same day nationwide, and cancel the current practice of staggered, off-cycle polls.

An off-cycle election happens when a state’s governorship poll does not fall with the general elections. Osun, Edo, Ondo, Anambra, Ekiti, and Bayelsa have all been victims of this calendar distortion, often due to court rulings or inconclusive results years ago. What was meant to be a technical adjustment has become a political weapon.

The 2026 Osun election followed that familiar script. Weeks before voting, Abuja became a pilgrimage site for party stalwarts. Federal appointees, ministers, and “party leaders” trooped into Osun with convoys, money, and marching orders. The message was not subtle: deliver the state to the party at the center, or face consequences.

We have seen this movie before. In the 2018 Osun rerun, observers reported heavy security presence in just seven polling units that decided the entire election. The final tally swung by barely 482 votes after the rerun. In 2022, civil society groups again flagged vote buying as a major issue despite INEC’s improved logistics. Even security agencies were not spared. During the Aregbesola era, the DSS publicly alleged that an unnamed political party offered its officers N14 million to compromise the Osun election, an offer that was rejected.

When elections are isolated, they become national projects. The ruling party at the federal level pours in all resources — human, financial, and coercive — because losing one state becomes a referendum on the center. Party stalwarts are mobilized to “save the party.” Voters are threatened. Traditional rulers are visited. Market women are given “stomach infrastructure” with instructions. The state government in power is isolated, its security architecture bypassed, and its people are left to contend with federal might.

Osun 2026 was no different. Despite being an incumbent’s re-election, the campaign felt like a national battle. The APC fielded a federal appointee in Bola Oyebamiji, Managing Director of NIWA. Federal infrastructure projects were commissioned weeks before the poll. The PDP was absent from the ballot, leaving Accord and APC to absorb the entire pressure. The result is voter fatigue, voter intimidation, and a politics of survival rather than issues.

This is why we must cancel off-cycle elections.

First, merging elections reduces federal interference. When 36 states vote for governors on the same day, the federal ruling party cannot concentrate all its energy, money, and federal power on one state. The cost of rigging 36 states at once is prohibitive. Attention and security will be spread thin, and states will compete on a more level playing field.

Second, it protects voters. Off-cycle elections turn citizens in one state into targets. They face threats, cash inducements, and political violence because the whole nation is watching that one contest. A national election day dilutes that pressure. No single community bears the full weight of the presidency’s attention.

Third, it saves money and strengthens INEC. Running elections every few months drains INEC’s budget, overstretches security agencies, and keeps the country in perpetual campaign mode. A single gubernatorial election day, aligned with presidential and legislative elections, will allow better planning, better deployment, and better observation.

Fourth, it restores focus to governance. Governors in off-cycle states spend the first two years looking over their shoulders, knowing the center is plotting the next takeover. Merged elections give them a full four-year term to govern, not to do permanent politics.

Critics will argue that merging will create voter overload or that court-ordered elections make staggering inevitable. Both can be solved. Constitutional amendment can reset all tenure clocks to a common date, with one-time adjustments. Overload can be handled with better ballot design and civic education – we already manage presidential, senate, house, and state assembly on one day.

The Osun 2026 result is important. But the process matters more. Until we end the practice of picking off states one by one, the federal ruling party will continue to use Osun, Edo, or any off-cycle state as a testing ground for money politics, intimidation, and federal power.

Nigeria’s democracy will mature the day an Osun voter casts his ballot without a minister in his village, without a federal allocation tied to his vote, and without the fear that his state is being used to settle a national score.

That day will only come when we merge all gubernatorial elections and bury off-cycle polls for good.