By The Metro 
Governor Ademola Adeleke of the Accord Party is leading in the collation of results from Saturday’s governorship election in Osun State.
Checks on the Nigeria Elections Intelligence System show results from 303 of the state’s 332 wards with Adeleke polling 177,572 votes, representing 50.5 per cent, ahead of his closest challenger, Bola Oyebamiji of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who had 158,588 votes, representing 45.1 per cent.
Najeem Salaam of the African Democratic Congress was placed third with 5,917 votes as at the time of filing this report, with collation still ongoing across the state’s 30 local government areas.
Figures from the collation showed that out of 845,100 registered voters in the state, 361,500 were accredited, translating to a voter turnout of 42.8 per cent. A total of 351,500 valid votes were recorded, while 7,200 ballots were rejected.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said 43.41 per cent of polling units had reported results as collation entered its concluding stages.
Adeleke, who is seeking re-election, defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the Accord Party ahead of the poll, which INEC cleared 14 political parties to contest after the PDP and the Labour Party failed to field candidates.
Adeleke’s running mate is Kola Adenusi, while Oyebamiji, a former Managing Director of the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA), is running with Benjamin Adereti as his deputy.
Results are expected to be formally declared by INEC’s Returning Officer at the state collation centre once all outstanding wards have reported.