The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has declared the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Rauf Aregbesola, as winner of the governorship election held on Saturday in Osun State.
Aregbesola polled a total of 203,090 votes, winning the highest number of votes in 22 of the 30 Local Government Areas of the State, defeating his closest challenger, Iyiola Omisore of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who polled 120,433. Omisore won in eight local government areas.
Candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Fatai Akinbade, got 18,135 votes to come a distant third.
"Having satisfied the requirements of the law and scoring the highest numbers of votes, Rauf Aregbesola of the All Progressives Congress is therefore returned elected," the Chief Returning Officer of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Professor Bamidele Omole, said.
Full result of election by Local Government Areas below:
Ejigbo LGA
Wards: 11
Reg voters: 50,674
No. of accredited voters: 33,752
APC: 17,700
PDP: 12,495
LP: 391
Total valid votes: 31,301
Rejected votes: 1,604
Total votes cast: 32,905
Ife South LGA
Wards: 11
Reg voters: 44,555
No. of accredited voters: 23,033
APC: 7,325
PDP: 12,811
LP: 146
Total valid votes: 20,901
Rejected votes: 1,108
Total votes cast: 22,079
Atakumosa East LGA
Wards: 10
Reg voters: 31,136
No. of accredited voters: 17,597
APC: 9,287
PDP: 6,294
LP: 120
Total valid votes: 16,395
Rejected votes: 974
Total votes cast: 17,369
"Election did not hold in one of the polling units because of some disagreements there," the Collation Officer said.
Olorunda LGA
Wards: 11
Reg voters: 71,981
No. of accredited voters: 38,301
APC: 26,551
PDP: 8,483
LP: 410
Total valid votes: 36,234
Rejected votes: 1,263
Total votes cast: 37,497
Osogbo LGA
Wards: 15
Reg voters: 118,535
No. of accredited voters: 56,741
APC: 39,983
PDP: 11,513
LP: 673
Total valid votes: 53,387
Rejected votes: 2,066
Total votes cast: 55,453
Iwo LGA
Reg voters: 66,898
No. of accredited voters: 41,229
APC: 20,827
PDP: 15,493
LP: 790
Total valid votes: 38,377
Rejected votes: 1,996
Total votes cast: 40,373
Ayedire LGA
Wards: 10
Reg voters: 25,880
No. of accredited voters: 17,200
APC: 7,724
PDP: 7,813
LP: 423
Total valid votes: 16,268
Rejected votes: 799
Total votes cast: 17,067
==============
Egbedore LGA
Reg voters: 33,547
No. of accredited voters: 19,293
APC: 10,615
PDP: 7,024
LP: 157
Total valid votes: 18,144
Rejected votes: 819
Total votes cast: 18,963
=============
Obokun LGA
Wards: 10
Reg voters: 37,985
No. of accredited voters: 22,063
APC: 11,696
PDP: 8,618
LP: 84
Total valid votes: 20,932
Rejected votes: 871
Total votes cast: 21,803
==========
Irewole LGA
Reg voters: 52,885
No. of accredited voters: 31,731
APC: 18,328
PDP: 10,330
LP: 117
Total valid votes: 29,850
Rejected votes: 1,131
Total votes cast: 30,981
============
Ayedade LGA
Wards: 11
Reg voters: 51,108
No. of accredited voters: 27,311
APC: 12,801
PDP: 11,255
LP: 137
Total valid votes: 25,428
Rejected votes: 1,441
Total votes cast: 26,869
===================
Ifelodun LGA
Wards: 12
Reg voters: 53,372
No. of accredited voters: 32,613
APC: 17,447
PDP: 12,442
LP: 96
Total valid votes: 33,113
Rejected votes: 1,141
Total votes cast: 31,972
==============
Ede North LGA
Wards:
Reg voters: 49,253
No. of accredited voters: 28,289
APC: 15,403
PDP: 10,427
LP: 54
Total valid votes: 26,591
Rejected votes: 1,288
Total votes cast: 27,879
==============
Isokan LGA
Wards:
Reg voters: 28,472
No. of accredited voters: 22,194
APC: 9,758
PDP: 10,028
LP: 197
Total valid votes: 20,860
Rejected votes: 1,028
Total votes cast: 21,888
================
Ife North
Wards: 10
Reg voters: 45,457
No. of accredited voters: 21,175
APC: 8,603
PDP: 9,841
LP: 265
Total valid votes: 19,506
Rejected votes: 1,231
Total votes cast: 20,737
====================
Ola-Oluwa
Wards: 10
Reg voters: 25,550
No. of accredited voters: 16,495
APC: 7,927
PDP: 4,963
LP: 2,476
Total valid votes: 15,735
Rejected votes: 614
Total votes cast: 16,349
===================
Ife East LGA
Wards: 10
Reg voters: 81,437
No. of accredited voters: 39,008
APC: 13,821
PDP: 20,831
LP: 297
Total valid votes: 36,142
Rejected votes: 1,836
Total votes cast: 37,978
=================
Ife Central
Wards:
Reg voters: 94,722
No. of accredited voters: 37,955
APC: 9,680
PDP: 24555
LP: 102
Total valid votes: 35,308
Rejected votes: 1,742
Total votes cast: 37,054
=====================
Irepodun LGA
Wards: 11
Reg voters: 36,521
No. of accredited voters: 22,426
APC: 13,314
PDP: 7,386
LP: 343
Total valid votes: 21,401
Rejected votes: 856
Total votes cast: 22,257
====================
Ila-Orangun
Wards: 11
Reg voters: 33,577
No. of accredited voters: 20,076
APC: 10,825
PDP: 7,916
LP: 43
Total valid votes: 19,150
Rejected votes: 727
Total votes cast: 19,877
"However, in Ward 1, 571 votes were cancelled for the following reasons: results of the election was not collated as there were some anomalies reported at that polling booth," said the Collation Officer.
=============
Ede South
Wards: 10
Reg voters: 35,941
No. of accredited voters: 21,250
APC: 11,738
PDP: 7,462
LP: 46
Total valid votes: 19,933
Rejected votes: 933
Total votes cast: 20,866
=====================
Atakumosa West LGA
Wards: 11
Reg voters: 24,625
No. of accredited voters: 13,173
APC: 6,928
PDP: 5,142
LP: 76
Total valid votes: 12,575
Rejected votes: 446
Total votes cast: 13,021
====================
Oriade LGA
Wards: 12
Reg voters: 47,140
No. of accredited voters: 25,398
APC: 12,523
PDP: 10,214
LP: 136
==============
Orolu LGA
Reg voters: 24,914
No. of accredited voters: 16,882
APC: 8,558
PDP: 6,786
LP: 440
Total valid votes: 16,070
Rejected votes: 569
Total votes cast: 16,639
===================
Boripe LGA
Wards: 11
Reg voters: 47,100
No. of accredited voters: 24,497
APC: 12,723
PDP: 9,344
LP: 249
Total valid votes: 23,014
Rejected votes: 1,004
Total votes cast: 24,018
"However, we received a petition from APC complaining about over voting in Ward 11," said the Collation Officer.
===================
Ilesa West
Wards:
Reg voters: 52,397
No. of accredited voters: 23,553
APC: 15,427
PDP: 5,449
LP: 32
Total valid votes: 21,641
Rejected votes: 1,128
Total votes cast: 22,769
Odo-Otin LGA
Wards: 15
Reg voters: 48,577
No. of accredited voters: 27,398
APC: 11,950
PDP: 12,902
LP: 518
Total valid votes: 25,946
Rejected votes: 1,146
Total votes cast: 27,092
Ilesa East
Wards: 11
Reg voters: 54,566
No. Of accredited voters: 24,718
APC: 16,106
PDP: 5,913
LP: 44
Total valid votes: 22,970
Rejected votes: 1,104
Total votes cast: 24,074
Boluwaduro LGA
Wards: 10
Reg voters: 16,839
No. Of accredited voters: 10,603
APC: 4,891
PDP: 5,035
LP: 19
Total valid votes: 10,175
Rejected votes: 355
Total votes cast: 10,530
Ifedayo LGA
Wards: 10
Reg voters: 13,044
No. Of accredited voters: 8,627
APC: 4,225
PDP: 3,982
LP: 17
Total valid votes: : 8,405
Rejected votes: 165
Total votes cast: 8,570
Meanwhile, Omisore has petitioned INEC discrediting the election and arguing that APC flouted the Electoral Law during the exercise. The petition came before INEC announced the final result. Titled: Protest On The August 9, Gubernatorial Election' Omisore argued that the candidate of the APC, Rauf Aregbesola flouted provisions of the Electoral Act 2010 by announcing results.
"I hereby condemn the APC candidate, Raufu Aregbesola declaring his own version of the results without recourse to INEC. With the facts of results, it is apparent that the PDP candidate, Dr. Iyiola Omisore is leading."
"This act of APC is in conflict with the provisions of Electoral Law 2010 whereby a candidate can concoct figures and release to confuse the public thus make this election inconclusive until facts behind the figures are released by the INEC.
"The peace and stability of this state is such under an unprecedented threat. The results so far by APC remained cancelled."
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The Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ola Olukoyede, has offered whistleblowers between 2.5 per cent and 5 per cent of recovered stolen Nigerian assets held abroad for information that leads to their recovery.
Olukoyede disclosed this on Wednesday while delivering a lecture at the Cambridge International Symposium on Economic Crime in the United Kingdom.
According to him, the ability of EFCC operatives to trace assets, cooperation from the judiciary and access to credible intelligence have played important roles in the commission’s success in securing non-conviction-based forfeiture orders.
He also described the EFCC as having some of the best investigators in the world and stressed the importance of protecting and encouraging whistleblowers.
He said anyone with credible information about stolen Nigerian assets taken or hidden anywhere in the world could receive between 2.5 per cent and 5 per cent of the recovered assets as an incentive, with payment made after the recovery.
Olukoyede further revealed that the EFCC had forfeited cash and assets worth more than $500 million to the Federal Government within the past three years.
He cited several cases involving the recovery and forfeiture of assets, including cases linked to a former Chairman of the Central Bank of Nigeria and a former Attorney-General of the Federation.
The EFCC chairman explained that the commission is legally empowered to seek the forfeiture of suspected proceeds of crime by applying to the High Court for an order. He said the process is similar to procedures used in countries such as Australia and Canada.
Olukoyede also recalled a case involving an aircraft allegedly acquired by an individual who was accused of receiving about $30 million in bribes in connection with a power project. He said the aircraft was forfeited about three months ago and had subsequently been added to the presidential air fleet.
He also referred to a property containing about 753 housing units that was forfeited from a former CBN governor, against whom the EFCC has filed criminal charges in three courts.
Speaking about the immediate past Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, Olukoyede said the EFCC opened an investigation following allegations of abuse of office. He claimed that investigators traced about 57 properties to Malami and that approximately 48 of them had been forfeited.
The EFCC chairman further mentioned the forfeiture of a private university allegedly linked to a director in the Federal Ministry of Health. According to him, the official voluntarily surrendered the property following the commission’s investigation.
Olukoyede said the measures demonstrate the importance of asset tracing, international cooperation, credible intelligence and whistleblower protection in the fight against financial crime and the recovery of stolen public assets.
The Dangote Petroleum Refinery has raised concerns over the growing volume of imported petrol entering Nigeria, warning that it could be forced to export more of its own production if the trend continues.
The refinery said imported Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) made up roughly 43 per cent of the petrol supplied to the Nigerian market in July. It argued that the development was creating serious difficulties for a domestic refinery with the capacity to produce enough fuel for the country.
Dangote Refinery explained that it has maintained sizeable petrol reserves since commencing operations to ensure that consumers across Nigeria have access to a reliable supply. Keeping those reserves, it noted, requires substantial expenditure on storage, transportation and working capital.
However, the refinery said the continued granting of import licences without adequate information about expected import volumes has made it increasingly difficult to determine how much petrol should be produced and stored for the local market.
The company said holding large quantities of petrol becomes financially burdensome when there is no certainty about how much imported fuel will compete for the same market. It therefore considers exporting surplus stocks a more commercially viable option than allowing them to remain in storage indefinitely.
According to the refinery, increased exports in recent months should not be interpreted as evidence that Nigeria lacks sufficient refining capacity. Instead, the exports are being driven by excess stock resulting from unpredictable import volumes.
Dangote Refinery maintained that it remains fully committed to supplying the Nigerian market and has the capacity to meet or surpass the country's petrol requirements. It said its decision to export surplus products was aimed at managing inventory efficiently and avoiding unnecessary storage and financing expenses.
The refinery also warned that market disruptions caused by excessive imports could make it harder for domestic refiners to accurately predict demand. Any resulting supply problems, it said, should not automatically be blamed on local refineries.
It urged regulators and other industry stakeholders to improve transparency around petrol imports and strengthen coordination within the downstream petroleum market.
The company argued that policies that give greater support to domestic refining would help Nigeria reduce its dependence on imported fuel, conserve foreign exchange, strengthen energy security and maximise the economic benefits of investments in local refining infrastructure.
Dangote Refinery said it remains prepared to supply the country but stressed that a more predictable and transparent market environment is necessary for efficient production and inventory management.
Business
In The Spotlight
A group of heartless carpetbaggers have captured the Nigerian state, and it appears that they, their biological and political descendants, will hold the levers of government and access to Nigeria’s commonwealth for a long time to come.
When you consider news reports of how previous and current state actors steal public funds, buy choice properties in the toniest districts of Nigeria’s major cities, acquire private jets, and even establish private universities, you wonder if some people have more than two heads, to adopt a Yoruba phrase.
Either because of an inability to deliver the greatest good to the greatest number of Nigerian citizens, or by intention, the political elite have kept the people poor, causing them to depend on the largeness of heart of the same elite to meet their existential needs.
That explains why poor, downtrodden, and unconnected Nigerians eagerly collect crumbs of measly N5,000, rice, gari and whatever else the politicians offer to obtain their election votes or acquiescence after rigging the elections.
When watching an economically disadvantaged individual tell a politician who is seeking to become a legislator the good news that his wife just had a new baby, and he needed to prepare for the naming ceremony, it felt like the oppressed poor were enabling his oppressor to further oppress him.
It was like the classic case of Stockholm syndrome, of victims collaborating with their “captors” to cement the oppressive stranglehold that they already had over the state and the commonwealth of the nation, thus unwittingly arresting their own future development.
A running mate to a former governorship candidate in a Southwestern state hilariously regaled Nigerians with the story of how constituents would have raided all the alcoholic drinks in his refrigerator in the early hours of the morning, even before he woke from the hectic campaign tour of the previous day.
The political elite have practically cornered the Nigerian state for themselves, children, tribesmen and acolytes, and have devised a way to admit only those that they have found to be loyal, or pliable, into their rank of oppressors.
The oppression of the citizens of Nigeria is easily accomplished because of the high illiteracy level amongst the poor masses. The use of the weapon of illiteracy is more evident in Northern Nigeria, whose political leaders somehow turn a blind eye to the illiteracy and underdevelopment of their people.
In 2024, UNICEF revealed that out of Nigeria’s 18.3 million out-of-school children, about 12.1 million, or 66 per cent, were resident in the Northwest and Northeast regions. Yet, instead of expanding educational facilities and opportunities, some Northern governors are arranging mass weddings for children who are hardly out of their teen years.
And this is not to deny the weaponisation of illiteracy even in Obafemi Awolowo’s Western Region, which is regarded as the Athens of Nigeria, after its pre-Independence head start of free, universal and compulsory primary school education.
As if he had a premonition that Nigeria’s so-called democrats would eventually compromise education, to the detriment of the lowest and marginalised masses, that Karl Marx described as the “lumpen proletariat”, French political thinker Montesquieu argued a long time ago that “It is in a republican government that the whole power of education is required.”
Western Nigeria’s free education scheme was gradually abandoned from the days of the Second Republic when some Yoruba members of President Shehu Shagari’s political party knocked it off its bottom with the argument that “qualitative” education was better than “free” education.
It is more than a shame that a free, universal and compulsory primary school education scheme was abandoned under President Shagari, who not only was a trained teacher, but had a career as a teacher before his political career.
Awolowo had warned Nigeria’s political elite with the following quip: “The children of the poor that you failed to educate will not let your children sleep peacefully.” The insecurity that currently occurs in nearly every part of Nigeria only drives Awolowo’s point home.
Probably the realm of the Nigerian republic that has been most complicit with the carpetbagger political elite is the media, whose members either serve the elites as press secretaries who kill media brushfires, or editors who either run planted stories, or spike stories that the politicians do not want published.
The media is so compromised that it can hardly perform those responsibilities assigned to it by Section 22 of the Nigerian Constitution, which are to “be free to uphold the fundamental objectives contained in (Chapter II of the Constitution) and uphold the responsibility and accountability of the Government to the people.”
Some apologists have argued on behalf of the media that the political elite have so run the economy aground that the media, which can only thrive as commercial enterprises within Nigeria’s quasi-capitalist economy, cannot stay afloat, especially with the devastating inroads that the digital media are making into their audience, advertising revenue and profit.
The absence of regional economies, the argument goes, prevents the emergence of regional newspapers that can thrive on advertising revenues from regional companies, the way it obtains in the economies of North America and Western Europe. Many Nigerian newspapers, that are essentially regional, often pretend to be national to receive advertising revenue from companies whose market is national.
Two other collaborators of the political elite are the election management agencies and the judiciary at both the national and sub-national levels of government. The conspiracy between these agencies and the political elite is almost like that of Siamese twins conjoined by the belly button.
After the election management agencies may have deliberately bungled (especially) governorship and legislative house elections, and declared false reports, the losers, who felt that they won the election, would then approach the temple of justice, with significant financial inducement to ask for justice(?).
From that point on, the justice that both contestants hope to corruptly obtain could swing according to the heft of the naira in the Ghana-must-go bag that they will be hauling into the chambers of the denizens of the corrupted judiciary.
Thus, the “award” of electoral justice is “a matter of cash”, to quote Basi, the protagonist of “Basi & Co”, the television sitcom produced by environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who himself was denied justice from the judiciary that served the regime of General Sani Abacha, Nigeria’s most notorious military dictator.
In Nigeria, the lines of separation of powers that demarcate the duties of the three arms of government –the legislative, executive and judiciary– and the checks and balances that empower each arm to check the others have become almost irredeemably blurred.
As legislators use constituency projects as a ploy to carry out the functions of the executive, the president issues executive orders that are essentially legislative in nature. Though the judiciary does not perform the duties of the other arms, it fails to check them as it indulgently winks at their excesses.
If those who are regarded as Nigeria’s political elite really know what is in their enlightened self-interest and would like to protect the future of their descendants from what Thomas Hobbes described as a short, brutish and nasty existence, they will use their current privilege to correct the evil they have done to Nigerians.
They must urgently redeem the future before it delivers violence against their children.
By Lekan Sote
In The Spotlight
Lagos alone is worth more than Botswana, Namibia, Rwanda and Mauritius combined.
Let that sink in.
With an economy of N41.17tn — about $102bn in 2021 — Lagos State dwarfed the entire gross domestic products of four countries. Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Delta and Bayelsa sit on oil wealth that funds nations. Ogun, Anambra and Imo churn out goods, services and commerce that would make small economies jealous.
By the numbers, Nigeria’s states are giants.
But walk the streets of Lagos, and you will still find mothers cooking with firewood. Drive through Port Harcourt, and you will see communities drinking water polluted by the same oil that makes the state’s GDP glow. Visit Umuahia, Abeokuta, or Minna and ask the average trader what “trillion-naira economy” means to her dinner table.
The answer is: nothing.
That viral video telling you “10 Nigerian states are richer than countries” is both true and a lie. True, because the 2021 BudgIT figures don’t lie — Lagos at N41.17trn, Rivers at N7.96trn, and so on. A lie, because those numbers are GDP, not prosperity. They measure how much economic activity happens _in_ a place, not how much of it reaches the people who live there.
A country with $7,778 GDP per capita, like Botswana, will still feed its citizens better than a state with $102bn in total output but $2,058 per capita, like Nigeria. A state can host a port, an oil rig, and a tech hub, yet fail to build a hospital that works.
So, the real question isn’t “Which state is bigger than which country?”
The real question, and the one our governors should lose sleep over, is this: When your economy is bigger than a nation, why are your people still living like they have nothing?
In this edition of The Bottomline, we follow the money from GDP to the gutter — and ask why Nigeria’s trillion-naira states have not become trillion-naira lives.
The viral numbers are not new. They were lifted straight from BudgIT’s 2022 State of States report and reflected 2021 estimates: Lagos at N41.17tn, followed by Rivers at N7.96tn, Akwa Ibom at N7.77tn, Imo at N7.68tn, Delta at N6.19tn, Anambra at N5.14tn, Ondo at N5.10tn, Ogun at N5.03tn, Bayelsa at N4.63tn and Niger at N4.58tn.
The trick is in the timing. To pitch those 2021 figures against 2025 country GDPs is statistical fraud. Nigeria has since rebased. The NBS moved the base year from 2010 to 2019, and the whole map shifted. Lagos itself has moved on: its 2025 _Lagos Economic Development Update_ puts the state at N43.06tn in 2023, with forecasts of N54.77tn for 2024 and N66.47tn for 2025. Those are projections, not fresh NBS post-rebasing observations, but they tell you the direction: up.
There is no debate that Lagos is Nigeria’s economic engine. From a colonial port to federal capital until 1991, it never lost momentum. Today, trade, manufacturing, ports, telecoms, tech, entertainment, real estate and finance all cluster in just 3,345 square kilometres. Compare that footprint to Botswana’s 581,730 sq km, Namibia’s 825,615 sq km, Rwanda’s 26,338 sq km, and Mauritius’ 2,040 sq km. Yet in 2021, Lagos’ $102 billion economy was several times larger than Botswana’s $19.9bn, Namibia’s $15.1bn, Rwanda’s $16.4bn, and Mauritius’ $16.2bn, according to 2025 World Bank figures.
That comparison is legitimate. The conclusion people draw from it is not.
GDP tells you how much value was produced in a territory. It does not tell you who owns it, who earns it, or whether the roads work, the lights stay on, or the hospital has drugs.
A state can run a trillion-naira economy and still have mothers boiling water on firewood. A country can have a smaller GDP and deliver a better life. Look at the per capita numbers: Botswana at $7,778, Namibia at $5,309, Mauritius at $11,819. Nigeria sits at about $2,058. Even Rwanda, at just $773 per capita, has pushed its $3-a-day poverty rate down to 38.6 per cent — proof that size is not destiny.
The oil states expose the fraud most brutally. Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Delta and Bayelsa rank high because petroleum inflates their GDP. But oil wealth does not flow into state coffers in equal measure, and it certainly does not flow into household wallets. BudgIT’s own fiscal sustainability index proves this. In 2022, Rivers topped overall fiscal performance despite Lagos having the biggest economy. A big economy without revenue discipline, jobs, and services is just a billboard.
Nigeria does not have a GDP problem. We have a translation problem.
We have pockets of enormous economic power. Lagos. Rivers. Akwa Ibom. Ogun. Anambra. Delta. The output is real. What is missing is the bridge between that output and ordinary life.
Until economic activity creates real jobs, until IGR rises and addiction to federal allocation falls, until infrastructure supports production instead of strangling it, those trillion-naira figures will remain a cruel joke.
So let the video go viral. Let Lagos be “bigger than Botswana”.
But governors, commissioners, and citizens should ask only one question:
If my state can outproduce a country, why can’t it out-deliver a decent life for the people who call it home?
Until we answer that, we are not rich. We are just big.
By Raphael Mbamalu