By Otunba Adejare Adegbenro
When the history of Nigeria’s Fourth Republic is written with honesty and clarity, the conduct of the August 15, 2026 Osun State governorship election will be remembered as one more proof that our democracy, for all its trials, continues to mature under the watch of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Across thirty local government areas and three hundred and thirty-two wards, millions of Osun indigenes trooped out to exercise their franchise in an election that fifteen political parties contested. That such a keenly fought contest could hold, be collated, and be concluded without descending into the kind of national crisis that has haunted our electoral history in decades past, is a credit to the federal institutions charged with securing our democratic space — institutions whose independence and capacity this administration has consistently defended.
President Tinubu came into office on a promise of Renewed Hope, and one of the quieter but no less important pillars of that promise has been an unrelenting commitment to the sanctity of the ballot. It would have been easy, in a hotly contested off-cycle election involving the President’s own party, for federal power to lean on the scales. It did not happen. INEC was allowed to do its work. The security agencies, deployed in their thousands to secure polling units, protect materials, and enforce the movement restrictions that made an orderly process possible, operated as a neutral shield for the electorate rather than as an instrument of any political camp.
That restraint, in a country where the temptation to weaponise incumbency has too often proved irresistible, deserves to be named and commended rather than taken for granted.
It must also be said plainly: democracy is not a contest whose value lies only in who wins. Its value lies in whether the process by which a winner emerges commands the confidence of the people. By that measure, Osun passed a serious test.
Results were transmitted and viewed in near real time on INEC’s portal, a transparency mechanism that this administration has continued to strengthen rather than dismantle. Collation proceeded, local government by local government, under the full glare of domestic observers, the media, and ordinary citizens armed with smartphones. When the outcome did not favour the President’s own party, there was no attempt from Abuja to subvert it. That, too, is leadership — the kind that understands that the durability of Nigeria’s institutions matters more than the fortunes of any single election cycle.
None of this is to pretend that the exercise was without blemish. Reports of vote-buying in some polling units, isolated incidents of disruption such as the unfortunate destruction of materials in Ejigbo, and controversy over the pre-election freezing of the state government’s accounts are matters that deserve continued scrutiny, and I do not shy away from saying so.
A tribute that ignored these realities would not be honest, and Mr President, a man who rose through the crucible of Nigerian politics himself, does not need flattery that insults the intelligence of the electorate. What he deserves is the honest acknowledgment that, on balance, the institutions of state under his watch held their ground, and the will of the Osun electorate — whichever way it fell — was allowed to stand.
As a grandson of two men who gave much of their lives to the pursuit of a freer, more accountable Nigeria — the late Premier Dauda Soroye Adegbenro of the old Western Region, and the late Pa Alfred Rewane, whose blood was spilled in the long struggle against military impunity — I do not offer praise to power lightly.
I offer it here because it is deserved. Their generation fought so that Nigerians could one day vote and have that vote counted without fear. Every election that passes peacefully, transparently, and without federal interference honours that sacrifice a little more.
President Tinubu should take this moment not as an occasion for triumphalism, but as an invitation to go further. Let Osun be a template, not an exception. Let the same restraint, the same deference to INEC’s independence, and the same tolerance for electoral outcomes that do not favour the ruling party be extended to every state that goes to the polls between now and 2027. That is the surest way for this administration to leave behind not just a record of economic reform, but a democratic legacy that will outlast any single presidency.
Nigeria is watching, and so is history. On the evidence of Osun, both may yet have reason to be encouraged.
• Adegbenro, an entrepreneur, diplomat, and philanthropist, writes from Abuja.