One of the most important questions for election day is whether pre-election violence will affect participation.
At least 34 election-related violent incidents and 18 deaths have been recorded in Osun State since May 2026, according to CJID’s Conflict Tracker. With voters heading to the polls on Saturday, 15 August, the pattern and concentration of these incidents raise questions about voter safety, participation and the security of the electoral process. Other actors have reported higher figures. The Nigeria Police Force has separately documented at least 30 killings it classified as politically motivated during the build-up to the election, while political parties have published their own casualty figures.
Police accounts have described some of the bloodshed as cult-driven reprisal, while a separate report put the confirmed toll at the Igbogi and Ikoti scene on Tuesday morning at two dead, with two others hospitalised for gunshot wounds. Despite the differences in attribution and casualty counts, the chronology captured by the Conflict Tracker shows an increase in violent incidents as the election has approached. Several recent incidents have also occurred around rallies, party gatherings and campaign movements.
The geography of the violence provides an important clue to its dynamics. The heaviest recent activity has been in and around Ilesa, particularly the Igbogi/Ikoti area and, earlier, Egbatedo, where one person was killed and several injured before arrests were made and weapons recovered. Beyond Ilesa, the Accord Party has pointed to killings in Oriade, Ijebu-Jesha, Ilobu, Ikire and Osogbo.
Over the longer monitoring period, Osogbo has recorded a significant share of the incidents captured by the Conflict Tracker. Recent violence, however, shows that the risk is not confined to the state capital.
Incidents in the Ilesa corridor, Oriade and other communities suggest multiple areas will require close attention as voting approaches.
For election day, the official risk map provides another useful overlay. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has flagged 11 local government areas as potential flashpoints: Atakumosa East, Atakumosa West, Boripe, Ede North, Ede South, Ife Central, Ifedayo, Ifelodun, Ila, Oriade and Osogbo.
Several overlap with locations where violence has already occurred. Osogbo, the Ilesa corridor and Oriade would therefore sit near the top of any watch list.
The geographic concentration of violence is important. Election violence does not have to occur across the state to affect participation more broadly. A killing around a rally or attack on party supporters in one community can generate fear in neighbouring areas, particularly when images, casualty claims and threats circulate widely online.
Several drivers explain the intensity of the current violence in Osun, but the first and most immediate is that the line separating political violence from cult violence in Osun has increasingly dissolved. Police accounts have attributed some recent killings to cult reprisals, while civil society monitors have raised concerns about the use of local armed and cult-linked networks during political mobilisation. This makes attribution difficult: an incident may involve actors with criminal or cult affiliations while occurring within a wider political dispute.
Second, the shape of the gubernatorial race has raised the stakes. Governor Ademola Adeleke’s mid-cycle defection has transformed what would otherwise have been a more familiar two-party contest into a highly competitive field. Mr Adeleke is the first Osun incumbent in recent memory to seek re-election on a different party from the one that first elected him, while both the PDP and Labour Party are absent from the ballot altogether. That has scrambled loyalties on the ground, including a faction of the old PDP structure led by former governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola publicly backing the APC candidate. The leading candidates are now fighting over overlapping territory, wards and grassroots networks rather than operating within settled party blocs. Whether this realignment directly explains individual incidents cannot be established from the available evidence, but it provides part of the political context in which the violence is occurring.
A pattern of reciprocal accusation has also developed. The major camps have repeatedly blamed one another for attacks on their supporters. This creates a risk of reprisal, particularly where political mobilisation overlaps with local armed networks. It also complicates verification because casualty figures increasingly form part of the political contest itself.
One of the most important questions for election day is whether pre-election violence will affect participation. Fear can alter electoral behaviour even without an attack occurring at a polling unit. A voter who believes travelling to a polling unit is unsafe may stay home. Party agents may avoid locations where they fear attack. Residents may also become reluctant to display political preferences where supporters have previously been targeted. These effects will be difficult to measure immediately, but turnout patterns in communities that have experienced violence should be examined after the election. Electoral integrity also depends on whether citizens can exercise their political rights without fear. Security therefore affects both the conduct of voting and the ability of citizens to participate in it.
The Nigerian Police Force has announced the deployment of 15,000 officers for the election, with the military positioned for outer-ring support in areas judged most volatile. The scale of the deployment reflects the seriousness of the security concerns, but numbers alone will not determine whether the election is peaceful. Heavy security can reassure voters if officers are perceived as impartial, but if trust is lacking or one side believes security institutions are politically aligned against it, the same deployment can become another source of tension. The relevant measure on Saturday will therefore be deployment and conduct: where officers are positioned, how they respond to incidents, whether access to polling and collation centres remains equitable, and whether similar infractions receive similar responses across political strongholds.
Based on the pattern recorded so far, CJID’s Conflict Desk identifies campaign movements, party gatherings and the recognised hotspots as areas requiring close attention through Friday. On election day, monitoring will extend to possible intimidation around polling units, interference with electoral materials, clashes involving party supporters and tensions around collation centres.
..-election period requires equal attention. A close or disputed result could interact with grievances already established during the campaign. The response of candidates, security agencies and INEC in the hours following collation may therefore influence whether tensions subside or continue.
Turnout will provide another useful indicator of how citizens responded to the electoral environment.
Participation was roughly 42 per cent in the 2022 Osun governorship election. If turnout falls significantly in communities that experienced violence, that pattern would deserve closer examination. It would not establish that violence caused the decline, but it could help identify where further investigation is needed.
The immediate responsibility of security agencies is to protect voters and prevent political actors from using violence to shape participation. INEC must ensure that the electoral process is transparent and credible. Political parties must restrain their supporters and reject retaliation. Civil society and the media must document violations while avoiding the amplification of inflammatory or unverified claims.
The 34 incidents and 18 deaths recorded by CJID’s Conflict Tracker are therefore more than a pre-election casualty count. They provide a baseline against which election-day and post-election developments can be assessed. The immediate test is whether security institutions can prevent further violence and allow citizens to vote freely on Saturday. The longer-term question is what happens to the networks, grievances and political incentives associated with the violence once the result has been declared.
Osun will have a winner after the votes are counted. Whether the election also reduces the tensions that produced this level of pre-election violence will take longer to determine.
