The outcome of the recently concluded Osun State governorship election offers an opportunity to undertake a broader empirical assessment of the electoral performance of the All Progressives Congress (APC) under the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Rather than interpreting the Osun result as an isolated political event, the more meaningful approach is to examine it as part of a larger sequence of off-cycle elections conducted since the emergence of the Tinubu administration in May 2023

Sometimes, politics is best understood not by the noise around the ballot box, but by the numbers that emerge from it. Since President Tinubu assumed office, the country has witnessed eight off-cycle governorship elections across eight states and four geopolitical zones.

Here is the breakdown: In Bayelsa State, Duoye Diri of the PDP won with 175,196 votes, while Timipre Sylva of the APC had 110,108 votes.

In Imo State, Hope Uzodinma of the APC recorded a landslide victory with 540,008 votes, while Samuel Anyanwu of the PDP came a distant second with 71,503 votes.

In Kogi State, Usman Ododo of the APC came atop with 446,237, while Murtala Ajaka of the SDP came second with 259,052.

In Edo State, Monday Okpebholo of the APC won with 291,667 votes, and Asue Ighodalo of the PDP came second with 247,274 votes.

In Ondo State, Lucky Aiyedatiwa of the APC was victorious with 366,781 votes, while Agboola Ajayi of the PDP came second with 117,845 votes. In Anambra State, Charles Soludo of the APGA recorded a resounding triumph with 422,664 votes, while Chukwuma Umeoji of the APC came a distant second with 99,445 votes.

In Ekiti State, Biodun Oyebanji of the APC triumphed with 319,224 votes, while Wole Oluyede of the PDP came a distant second with 40,543.

In the recently concluded Osun State gubernatorial contest, Ademola Adeleke of the Accord Party came first with 511,067, while Munirudeen Bola Oyebamiji of the APC came second with an impressive 444,815 votes

Of these eight governorship elections conducted since Tinubu became President, APC won five; PDP won one; APGA won one; and Accord won one.

The eight elections collectively produced 4,875,767 votes, of which APC candidates secured 2,618,585, approximately 53.7%.
And remember: these were battles fought across North Central, South East, South South and South West.

APC won convincingly in Imo, Ondo, Ekiti, Edo and Kogi. It competed strongly in Bayelsa, where PDP retained the state, and fought a remarkably close contest in Osun, where Accord eventually prevailed.

The only state where APC recorded a genuinely poor showing was Anambra, won by APGA. But there is another statistic the opposition would rather not discuss.

In every one of these eight states, APC finished either first or second. Not third. Not fourth. Not scattered into political irrelevance. First or second; every single time.

That is not the record of a party that has disappeared from the political map. That is the record of a party that remains consistently competitive across multiple regions of the country.

Now, let’s look at the National Assembly by-elections. The governorship figures are only one part of the story. Since the inauguration of the 10th National Assembly, there have been 19 National Assembly bye-election contests considered in this scorecard.

And the result? APC — 15 wins, PDP — 3 wins APGA — 1 win That means APC won 15 out of 19, representing approximately 78.9% of the National Assembly bye-election seats in this tally.
Let that sink in.

The same opposition that routinely announces the imminent collapse of APC has watched the ruling party win nearly four out of every five National Assembly bye-election seats in this record. And this is not confined to one geopolitical zone. It is a national electoral footprint.

Now put both scorecards together, combine the two categories: Governorship elections: 8; National Assembly bye-elections: 19. Total electoral contests: 27

Out of these, APC won 5 governorship victories and 15 National Assembly seats — 15. That gives APC 20 victories out of 27 contests; approximately 74.1%, while the PDP and other opposition parties collectively accounted for the remaining seven victories, around 16%

So when the opposition says APC has been rejected nationally, the obvious question is: Rejected where? Because the electoral record since Tinubu assumed office tells a substantially different story.

APC has won governorships in the South East, South-South, South West and North Central. It has remained either first or second in every one of the eight off-cycle governorship contests listed above. And in the National Assembly bye-election scorecard, it has won 15 of 19 seats.

That is not perfection. No political party wins every election. But politics is not a mathematics of permanent invincibility. It is a contest of electoral competitiveness, geographical spread, organisational strength, and the capacity to remain relevant when the votes are counted.

A fox that cannot always catch the hare still commands respect for how close it always comes.

And then came the political realignments. There is an even more interesting dimension when we begin looking toward 2027. Of the states listed above, Bayelsa Governor Duoye Diri has since moved to the APC. In Anambra, Governor Charles Soludo has publicly endorsed President Tinubu for a second term. And in Osun, Governor Ademola Adeleke has also publicly aligned himself with the President’s re-election bid.

Politics is dynamic. Alliances change. Politicians move. Interests realign. But those developments make one thing clear: The political map heading into 2027 is not the same map the opposition is still campaigning against. And this is where the opposition needs to be careful.

It is easy to mistake social-media noise for electoral strength. It is easy to mistake criticism of government for rejection of a political party. It is easy to look at one election, particularly Osun, and declare that APC has been swept away.

But serious political analysis requires looking at the aggregate evidence. Eight governorship elections. Nineteen National Assembly by-election contests. Twenty APC victories in this combined scorecard. 20 out of 27. That is approximately 74.1%.

So, remind me again: Where exactly is the electoral collapse? And if the opposition wants to argue that the 2027 presidential election will be different, that is legitimate. Elections are won on election day.

Conclusively, in scientific terms, the available evidence points more convincingly to electoral resilience than electoral decline. Politically, it means the APC enters the 2027 cycle with substantial organisational and electoral advantages. The challenge before the party is to consolidate those advantages, learn from its defeats and prevent isolated setbacks from developing into a wider trend.

The broader electoral record tells the story more clearly than Osun alone: under Tinubu, APC has not achieved perfection—but it has achieved something arguably more important for a governing party: repeated proof that it can compete, win, retain and recover political ground across Nigeria’s most closely watched off-cycle electoral contests.

The conclusion, therefore, is not that APC is unbeatable. It is that the party has performed exceptionally well by the more rigorous standard of cumulative electoral resilience.

Osun may have interrupted the winning sequence, but it has not fundamentally altered the larger trajectory. If anything, it provides the APC with valuable diagnostic information ahead of 2027: where its structures are weak, where internal cohesion is necessary, and where opposition alliances can successfully exploit its vulnerabilities.

By Olalekan Oni
Oni, a social commentator, wrote from Ikeja, Lagos.