PREMIUM TIMES reports that ADC spokesperson Bolaji Abdullahi had claimed that his party’s low vote count during the election was due to its collaboration with Mr Adeleke’s party.
The Osun State Governor, Ademola Adeleke, has denied that he had any deal with the African Democratic Congress (ADC) to secure his victory in Saturday’s election.
According to the ADC spokesperson, the party’s collaboration with Mr Adeleke’s camp was part of the political calculations that contributed to the outcome of the election and its own low vote tally.
PREMIUM TIMES reports that Mr Abdullahi had claimed that his party’s low vote count during the election was due to its collaboration with Mr Adeleke’s party.
“We saw the possibility of collaboration. We saw the possibility earlier enough that if we decided to go full throttle, the possibility that the opposition would divide the votes and the APC would take the victory was there,” Mr Abdullahi said on Monday during an interview with Trust TV while assessing the party’s performance in the election.
“And that was why we saw the opportunity to work together, and that was what happened,” he added.
The claim came amid a highly competitive election in which the APC sought to reclaim Osun State four years after its candidate, Gboyega Oyetola, lost the governorship to Mr Adeleke.
Following the 2026 governorship election, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Mr Adeleke, who contested under the Accord Party, the winner with 511,067 votes, defeating the APC candidate, Bola Oyebamiji, who polled 444,815 votes.
The result gave Mr Adeleke a winning margin of 66,252 votes, more than twice the 28,344-vote margin by which he defeated Mr Oyetola in the 2022 election.
The ADC’s candidate, Najeem Salaam, finished a distant third in the 2026 contest, recording a substantially lower vote count than the two leading candidates.
Mr Abdullahi’s comments therefore suggested that the ADC’s electoral performance was influenced by its decision to work with the governor’s political camp.
Mr Adeleke, however, rejected that interpretation and said the ADC should not be credited for his victory.
“I commend political partners who went all out to make Saturday a victory day for all Osun people. But we must clarify for the sake of history that ADC was never part of the alliance,” he said.
