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From the Failure of Campaign Democracy to the Rise of Citizen-Driven Performance Democracy
The 2026 Osun governorship election has done something far more important than produce another four-year mandate for Governor Ademola Adeleke.
It has produced a political laboratory.
It has given Nigeria a case study in the transition from Campaign Democracy to Performance Democracy—from a politics built principally around party structures, incumbency, political godfathers, money, propaganda and federal influence, to a politics in which citizens increasingly ask one decisive question:
“What have you done for me, my family and my community?”
For Professor Nentawe Goshwe Yilwatda, National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Osun should therefore not be treated merely as an election lost by the APC.
It should be treated as data.
And for a man whose professional journey has been shaped by engineering, ICT, digital transformation, electoral technology and public administration, the most appropriate response to Osun cannot be emotion.
It must be interrogation.
Nentawe: The Technocrat Entering the Political Laboratory
Professor Nentawe Goshwe Yilwatda emerged as National Chairman of the APC on July 24, 2025, following the resignation of Abdullahi Ganduje. His nomination was moved by Governor Hope Uzodimma and seconded by Speaker Tajudeen Abbas before the APC National Executive Committee elected him by consensus.
His biography is important because it creates an unusual expectation around the leadership of Nigeria’s ruling party.
Nentawe is not merely a career politician.
He trained as an electrical/electronic engineer at the Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, obtained a master’s degree from Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi, and earned a PhD in Electronic and Computer Engineering from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
He subsequently spent more than two decades in academia and became the pioneer Director of ICT at his university, where he was involved in digital transformation and automation initiatives.
He later served as Resident Electoral Commissioner in Benue State from 2017 to 2021, giving him direct institutional experience in electoral administration. His professional record also includes work around electoral inclusion, technology and frameworks for internally displaced persons and persons with disabilities.
His career subsequently moved through elective politics, the 2023 Plateau governorship contest, the Tinubu-Shettima presidential campaign in Plateau, federal ministerial service and, ultimately, the national chairmanship of the ruling party.
This background matters.
Because Nigerians should reasonably expect a man with this profile to approach political management differently.
If a conventional politician sees an election as a contest of structures, a technocrat should see it as a contest of variables.
If a conventional politician asks, “How many party leaders do we control?”, a data-driven political strategist should ask:
What are citizens saying?
What are citizens experiencing?
What is the approval rating of the government?
Which policies are producing pain?
Which policies are producing gains?
Which constituencies have changed allegiance?
Why?
What happened between previous elections and this one?
What is the correlation between government performance and voting behaviour?
That is why Osun should be particularly interesting to Nentawe.
The Southwest Electoral Evidence
Ondo
The November 2024 Ondo governorship election took place under the Tinubu presidency.
APC’s Lucky Aiyedatiwa won 366,781 votes against PDP’s Agboola Ajayi, who scored 117,845 votes. Aiyedatiwa won all 18 local government areas, while turnout was approximately 30.3 per cent of registered voters.
Ekiti
Exactly four years after the 2022 governorship election, Ekiti returned to the polls on June 20, 2026.
Governor Biodun Oyebanji, the APC incumbent who first won office in 2022, sought a second term.
He did not merely survive.
He won decisively.
Oyebanji polled 319,224 votes, while the PDP candidate, Wole Oluyede, scored 40,543. The APC won every local government area.
The political significance is considerable.
Ekiti demonstrates that the Southwest cannot simply be described as an anti-Tinubu or anti-APC region.
If that were the case, Oyebanji’s 2026 victory would be difficult to explain.
Indeed, his victory demonstrated that an incumbent governor could successfully secure a consecutive second term with overwhelming electoral support.
Then came Osun.
And the political equation changed.
Osun: When the Citizen Became the Campaign Structure
The 2026 Osun governorship election produced a result that should make every serious political strategist pause.
INEC’s declared result gave Ademola Adeleke of Accord 511,067 votes against APC’s Bola Oyebamiji, who scored 444,815 votes—a winning margin of 66,252 votes.
The extraordinary thing is not simply that APC lost.
It is how it lost.
The traditional party brands were under pressure.
APC entered the election carrying the baggage of its political history in the state, including memories associated with former governors Rauf Aregbesola and Gboyega Oyetola, while the Tinubu administration supplied an additional national-performance variable.
PDP was equally compromised by internal crisis.
The result was a political vacuum.
And Adeleke understood something that the old grammar of Nigerian politics sometimes fails to appreciate:
When party brands become weak, the candidate must become the brand.
The Imole campaign identity gave Adeleke an electoral vehicle larger than the PDP brand and, eventually, larger than Accord itself.
But there is an important qualification.
Adeleke did not enter Accord as an unknown candidate seeking relevance from a small party. He entered with incumbency, personal recognition, an established political identity and a performance narrative.
In that circumstance, Accord became the legal vehicle.
Imole became the political vehicle.
And Adeleke became the candidate through whom citizens expressed their preference.
That is a different model of politics.
The Numbers That Should Alarm APC
The 2026 Osun election had 2,339,233 registered voters.
There were 1,010,604 accredited voters, 1,005,800 votes cast and 985,079 valid votes.
Against that background, Adeleke’s 511,067 votes represented substantial mobilisation of the available electorate.
But there is an even more important lesson.
APC did not collapse.
It received 444,815 votes.
That means the APC still possesses a substantial electoral constituency in Osun.
The correct interpretation, therefore, is not that APC has disappeared from Osun.
It is that party structure alone was insufficient to defeat a citizen-centred campaign built around a strong incumbent performance narrative.
This is the precise point at which Campaign Democracy begins to collide with Performance Democracy.
Ondo: When Party Structure Survived Citizen Dissatisfaction
Ondo demonstrated the continuing power of incumbency, party structure and the absence of a sufficiently coordinated alternative.
Whatever Nigerians may think about the Tinubu administration, it would be intellectually lazy to claim that every APC victory is proof of overwhelming public approval.
Election results are more complicated than that.
An electorate may be dissatisfied with a government and still vote for its party because there is no sufficiently organised alternative.
That distinction is crucial.
A citizen may be angry.
But anger without organisation does not automatically become political power.
That appears to have been part of the lesson of Ondo.
The opposition failed to convert whatever dissatisfaction existed into a coherent, citizen-driven electoral machine capable of overcoming APC’s structure.
The result was decisive: APC won all 18 LGAs.
The lesson for Nentawe should therefore not simply be:
“APC remains strong.”
The deeper question should be:
How much of APC’s strength came from genuine citizen approval, and how much came from the weakness of the opposition alternative?
That is a data question.
The Security Question: When a State Becomes a Security Theatre
There is another dimension Nentawe must study.
The scale of security deployment in Osun was extraordinary.
Before the election, more than 25,000 security personnel from the Nigeria Police Force, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps and other agencies were reported to have been deployed across the state. The police component alone was reported at approximately 15,000 personnel.
More strikingly, the police announced the deployment of 30 Commissioners of Police across the state, alongside a Deputy Inspector-General coordinating operations.
The official explanation was that the commissioners were strategically deployed across the three senatorial districts rather than literally assigned one commissioner to each local government area.
That distinction matters.
But the larger political symbolism remains.
A state of 30 LGAs required a security architecture involving a DIG, AIGs, numerous Commissioners of Police and thousands of police officers, alongside other agencies.
One is reminded of an old image:
Have you ever heard of trying to kill an ant with a sledgehammer?
The question is not whether security was necessary.
It is whether the scale of security mobilisation itself tells us something about the degree of political anxiety surrounding elections in Nigeria.
Security can secure a polling unit.
It cannot secure a government against public dissatisfaction.
It can protect ballot boxes.
It cannot protect a failing political narrative.
That is why Performance Democracy must eventually become stronger than the security architecture of Campaign Democracy.
Nentawe’s Real Assignment Is Not 2027 — It Is Diagnosis
Professor Nentawe should resist the temptation to interpret Osun through the language of betrayal, defection or insufficient mobilisation.
The more useful question is:
What did the electorate actually tell the APC?
And the answer must be extracted constituency by constituency.
The APC needs a national Performance Electoral Intelligence System.
Every APC-controlled state should be subjected to quarterly political-performance auditing.
Not propaganda.
Not party praise-singing.
Data.
Measure:
- Infrastructure delivery.
- Employment and livelihoods.
- Education.
- Healthcare.
- Security.
- Cost of living.
- Workers’ welfare.
- Internally generated revenue.
- Federal allocations.
- Citizen satisfaction.
- Youth sentiment.
- Women’s economic participation.
- Social-media sentiment.
- Constituency-level legislative performance.
- Trust in political leadership.
Then compare these indicators against voting behaviour.
That is the language Nentawe understands.
Oyo: The APC Must Count Its Teeth Before Counting Its Votes
If Nentawe intends to understand what is coming in the Southwest, he must look very carefully at Oyo.
Oyo is not Osun.
Indeed, the political sophistication of Oyo makes it potentially more difficult to predict.
Oyo is a state where political identity has repeatedly demonstrated that it can transcend party labels.
And Accord is not a political accident in Oyo.
Its history matters.
In the 2015 governorship election, Accord’s Rasheed Ladoja polled 254,520 votes against APC’s Abiola Ajimobi, who won with 327,310 votes.
Accord has also previously produced significant legislative representation in Oyo, including senators and members of the House of Representatives.
The lesson is simple:
Accord has historical memory in Oyo.
It is not a party being introduced to Oyo for the first time.
Now, however, the party has acquired something else:
a citizen communicator.
Oriyomi Hamzat and the New Political Currency
Oriyomi Hamzat’s emergence as Accord’s 2027 governorship candidate introduces another dimension.
He is not a conventional career politician.
He built his public identity through broadcasting, particularly through Agidigbo FM, and through interventionist programming focused on the problems of ordinary people.
His political entry therefore represents a transition from amplifying citizens’ voices to seeking political power to serve them.
That gives him something conventional politicians spend millions trying to manufacture:
a pre-existing relationship with the grassroots.
His political capital did not begin at a party secretariat.
It began in people’s homes, markets, streets, radio sets and everyday conversations.
This is precisely why Oyo deserves to be watched.
The question is not whether Oriyomi Hamzat will win.
Nobody can responsibly predict that today.
The question is whether a citizen movement can be converted into an electoral structure.
That is the experiment.
And Oyo is the laboratory.
Then There Is Makinde
The third variable makes Oyo even more complicated.
Governor Seyi Makinde has entered the 2027 presidential contest under the Allied Peoples Movement.
Makinde’s ambition should not be dismissed merely because the arithmetic of winning the presidency from a smaller party appears difficult.
Presidential elections are not only about winning.
They are also about redistributing votes.
A candidate can fail to win nationally and still fundamentally alter the mathematics of another candidate’s victory.
This is why Oyo and Bauchi become important.
Makinde has political capital in Oyo.
Bauchi offers a northern political bridge.
And a presidential candidacy operating outside the two dominant political machines can become a spoiler variable even without becoming the eventual winner.
The APC must therefore model scenarios rather than make predictions.
What happens if Makinde takes 20 per cent in Oyo?
What happens at 30 per cent?
What happens if he attracts a protest vote?
What happens if his campaign becomes the preferred vehicle for citizens who dislike both APC and PDP?
These are not questions for political gossip.
They are questions for electoral modelling.
Davido and the Danger of Repeating APC’s Mistake
Then comes David Adeleke—Davido.
His recent intervention against the return of Senator Francis Fadahunsi and House of Representatives member Oluwole Oke has entered the political conversation.
But here is where Performance Democracy must challenge even those who believe they are defending it.
Davido must not make the same mistake political parties have made for decades: mistaking influence for control.
The victory of Ademola Adeleke in Osun was not a licence for any individual—whether president, governor, party chairman, celebrity or political family—to determine who citizens should elect.
Adeleke’s victory teaches the opposite lesson.
The people voted.
Therefore, if Davido believes that Fadahunsi or Wole Oke should not return to the National Assembly, the appropriate democratic question is not:
“How do I stop them?”
It is:
“What has their performance been in their constituencies?”
That is Performance Democracy.
The Fadahunsi Test
Take Senator Francis Fadahunsi.
He represents Osun East Senatorial District.
In 2023, he defeated the APC candidate with 127,877 votes to 95,670.
He is therefore not a political lightweight.
But political longevity is not the same thing as performance.
The question for 2027 should be:
What did Senator Fadahunsi deliver to Ife/Ijesa?
How many bills?
How many interventions?
How much constituency development?
What employment?
What education support?
What healthcare?
What roads?
What legislative interventions?
What oversight outcomes?
What measurable changes can citizens attribute to his representation?
Those are the questions.
Not whether Davido likes him.
Not whether APC likes him.
Not whether PDP likes him.
Not whether Accord likes him.
What do his constituents think?
And Wole Oke?
Oluwole Oke is another interesting case.
He represents the Obokun/Oriade Federal Constituency, and the National Assembly’s own profile records him as a PDP member of the House of Representatives.
In the 2023 election, he won with 31,907 votes against the APC candidate’s 18,412.
His long tenure makes him precisely the sort of legislator Performance Democracy should interrogate.
Long service should not automatically mean entitlement.
But neither should political disagreement automatically mean rejection.
The citizen must become the judge.
That is the revolution we are proposing.
The Bigger Lesson for 2027
The 2027 election will not be a collection of isolated governorship elections.
It will be a national contest involving presidential, senatorial, House of Representatives, governorship and State Assembly races occurring within one interconnected political environment.
The federal government will have incumbency.
The APC will have enormous organisational resources.
Opposition parties will have their structures.
Governors will have their local machines.
Celebrities will have their platforms.
Traditional rulers will have influence.
Religious leaders will have influence.
Money will circulate.
Propaganda will circulate.
But underneath all of these will be the citizen.
And the citizen is becoming harder to control.
This is the fundamental lesson of Osun.
A candidate can endorse the President and still win against the President’s party.
A governor can belong to a smaller party and defeat a ruling-party machine.
A candidate can build a campaign identity larger than his party.
A party can possess federal power without possessing the citizen.
And a citizen can distinguish between the person he wants as governor and the person he wants as president.
Adeleke’s support for Tinubu makes this especially clear.
Before the Osun election, Adeleke repeatedly endorsed Tinubu’s 2027 bid. After his victory, he reaffirmed that position and subsequently clarified that his support was not based on a political agreement, but on his view of Tinubu as a Yoruba president and on federal projects affecting Osun.
The political implication is profound:
The electorate is not necessarily voting as a bloc.
A citizen can vote one way for governor and another way for president.
That is not political confusion.
It may actually be the beginning of mature democracy.
The APC Must Stop Confusing Power With Control
This is the warning Nentawe should take from Osun.
The APC possesses power.
But power is not control.
Control belongs to the citizen.
Political parties have historically behaved as though securing the machinery of government means securing the electorate.
It does not.
A party may control the presidency and lose a governorship.
A governor may control a state and lose a constituency.
A senator may control a party structure and lose his seat.
A celebrity may command millions of followers and still fail to move a single polling unit.
The only enduring power is earned public trust.
That is why Performance Democracy is the next stage of Nigeria’s democratic evolution.
The Nentawe Opportunity
Professor Nentawe has an unusual opportunity.
He can become the first national party chairman to seriously introduce performance intelligence into electoral strategy.
He can tell APC governors:
“Do not bring me crowds. Bring me data.”
He can tell lawmakers:
“Do not bring me endorsements. Bring me your constituency scorecard.”
He can tell ministers:
“Do not tell me what your ministry announced. Tell me what changed.”
He can tell candidates:
“Do not tell me how many political leaders attended your rally. Tell me how many citizens intend to vote for you—and why.”
And most importantly, he can tell President Tinubu:
“The APC must measure the citizen’s experience, not merely the government’s narrative.”
That would be a revolutionary contribution to Nigerian democracy.
Osun Is Not an APC Defeat Alone
Osun is bigger than APC.
It is bigger than Adeleke.
It is bigger than Accord.
It is bigger than Davido.
It is bigger than Nentawe.
It is a warning to every political organisation in Nigeria.
Campaign Democracy is losing its monopoly.
The citizen is beginning to construct his own campaign.
He may listen to a party.
He may listen to a governor.
He may listen to a celebrity.
He may listen to a traditional ruler.
He may listen to a pastor or imam.
But increasingly, he asks:
“What have you done?”
And that question cannot be answered by propaganda.
2027: The Coming Collision
In Oyo, Nentawe should not arrive with assumptions.
He should arrive with a database.
He should examine the 33 local governments.
He should examine wards.
He should examine polling units.
He should examine historical voting patterns.
He should examine Makinde’s performance.
He should examine APC’s performance.
He should examine the strength of Accord.
He should examine Oriyomi Hamzat’s citizen network.
He should examine the presidential implications of Makinde’s candidacy.
He should examine the relationship between federal policy and local sentiment.
He should examine the political history of Oyo.
And then he should ask the most dangerous question in politics:
What if the people are not where the party thinks they are?
That question may save the APC from another Osun.
The Yoruba Wisdom
There is a Yoruba expression that captures the warning perfectly:
“Olómo má dà ọmú ìyá rẹ gbé.”
Do not become so careless that you destroy the breast from which you feed.
Political parties must not destroy citizen trust through arrogance.
Governments must not destroy democratic legitimacy through contempt.
Opposition parties must not destroy their own credibility through internal warfare.
Celebrities must not destroy citizen agency by assuming that influence is ownership.
And political leaders must not destroy the democratic system by confusing victory with control.
The Era of Citizen Power
Nigeria is approaching a new political age.
The old political question was:
Which party has the structure?
The emerging question is:
Which candidate has earned the confidence of the people?
The old question was:
Who controls the political machine?
The emerging question is:
Who can mobilise citizens around measurable performance?
The old question was:
How much money can we spend?
The emerging question is:
How much value have we created?
This is the essence of Performance Democracy.
Osun has given Nigeria a living case study.
Ondo showed that party machinery can survive citizen dissatisfaction where opposition mobilisation is weak.
Ekiti provides a useful four-year electoral baseline for understanding how incumbency and party identity operated in the Southwest.
Osun has now demonstrated something new: a candidate can build a citizen-centred campaign identity, operate through a relatively small party, rely heavily on personal political capital and a performance narrative, and defeat a ruling-party machine.
And Oyo may take the experiment to another level.
Because Oyo is not merely another Southwest state.
It is a politically sophisticated theatre where APM, APC, PDP, Accord, Makinde, Hamzat and the citizen electorate will interact in ways that cannot be reliably predicted by old political mathematics.
The wise politician will therefore not ask:
“Who will win?”
He will ask:
“What are the citizens telling us?”
That is the beginning of data-led politics.
That is the beginning of Performance Democracy.
And for Professor Nentawe Yilwatda, Osun is not an election to explain away.
It is an election to study.
Because if the APC does not learn from Osun, the citizen will teach the lesson again in 2027.
And the next examination may not be confined to Osun.
The age of political parties commanding citizens is giving way to the age of citizens interrogating political parties.
That is the real story of Osun.
That is the warning to the APC.
And that is the promise of Performance Democracy.
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