Osun Election: Large voter turnout best antidote to rigging — Peterside

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Atedo Peterside

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Economist and former banker, Atedo Peterside, has said the large voter turnout recorded in the 2026 Osun governorship election demonstrated that mass participation remained one of the strongest safeguards against electoral malpractice.

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Peterside stated this in a post on his X handle on Sunday while reacting to the outcome of the election, which saw Governor Ademola Adeleke secure a second term in office.

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He cautioned against being carried away by the election result, saying the key lesson from the poll was the importance of high voter participation and close monitoring of the electoral process.

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“Some of us refuse to get carried away by the #OsunGuber2026 Election result,” Peterside said.

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“The only thing it really proves is that a large voter turnout (43.4% in Osun is high by recent Nigerian standards) is the best antidote to rigging and that we must all join hands to hold INEC Nigeria’s ‘feet to the fire’.”

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Peterside also raised concerns over the uploading of results on the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) Result Viewing Portal (IReV).

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He said that as of 8:50 a.m. on Sunday, the day after the election, 98.35 per cent of the results had been uploaded on the portal instead of 100 per cent.

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According to him, INEC still needed to explain why results from 62 polling units out of the 3,763 polling units in the state had not been uploaded.

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He acknowledged that the outstanding results were unlikely to affect the outcome of the election, given Adeleke’s margin of victory, but said the electoral commission should nevertheless account for the missing results.

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“INEC must still explain why they have NOT uploaded the results from 62 Polling Units out of 3,763 Polling Units, notwithstanding the fact that those results are now largely inconsequential because Governor Adeleke has already won,” he said.

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