A faction of the Accord Party has elected Mr Clement Bamigbola as its candidate for the Osun State governorship election scheduled for 8 August 2026.
Bamigbola emerged through a voice vote of about 300 delegates at the party’s primary election held on Sunday in Osogbo. The Chairman of the Primary Electoral Committee, Mr Olufemi Ogundare, announced him as the party’s candidate, after which the party’s flag was presented to him by party leaders.
However, the development has deepened internal disagreements within the party. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Governor Ademola Adeleke had earlier been elected as the Accord Party’s governorship candidate on 10 December.
Adeleke, who was the sole aspirant at that primary, polled 145 votes out of the 150 cast in an exercise monitored by officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Osogbo. He was subsequently presented with a certificate of return by the National Chairman of the party, Mr Maxwell Ngbudem.
Reacting to the emergence of Bamigbola, the Osun State Chairman of the Accord Party, Mr Victor Akande, called on security agencies and INEC to be vigilant against what he described as attempts to disrupt public peace.
In a statement, Akande alleged that opposition parties were planning to create disunity and confusion by organising what he termed an illegal and parallel primary election in the name of the Accord Party. He described the exercise as fraudulent, provocative and invalid.
According to him, the Accord Party remains a law-abiding, democratic and peace-loving organisation recognised by its legitimate national leadership, adding that any primary election or aspirant outside that framework is null and void.
Akande maintained that the people of Osun State had chosen peace, performance and purposeful leadership, stressing that nothing would impede what he described as the victory of the people in the political process.
