Adeleke Sets Up Osun Inquiry Into Election Violence, Property Losses After Troubled Poll

Osogbo, Osun State

Governor Ademola Adeleke has moved to establish a formal mechanism for investigating the violence, deaths and other losses recorded around the 2026 Osun governorship election, following weeks of political tension, allegations of attacks and reported destruction of property across parts of the state.

The development comes as Adeleke is about to begin his second term in office as Osun state Governor after receiving his Certificate of Return from the Independent National Electoral Commission on Wednesday, August 19, following his victory in the August 15 governorship election.

The governor’s intervention is significant because it goes beyond compensation for victims. It raises the prospect of an official examination of what happened before and during an election that was marked by accusations of intimidation, alleged attacks, arrests, threats and clashes between rival political camps.

Governor Adeleke had promised an inquiry before the election

The decision did not suddenly emerge after Adeleke’s victory. On Friday, August 14, a day before voting, Adeleke announced plans to establish an Independent Commission of Inquiry after the election to investigate reported killings and other acts of violence connected with the electoral period.

He made the announcement while addressing journalists in Osogbo, with the state government expressing concern over lives lost during the tense campaign period.

Adeleke said the proposed commission would establish the circumstances surrounding the deaths and recommend appropriate action against anyone found responsible, irrespective of political affiliation, position or influence.

His position was blunt; political differences should never become a justification for taking human life.The government also indicated that families affected by the violence would receive support and that the victims would be appropriately honoured.

ValidViewNetwork reports that the announcement on August 14 matters because it establishes that the inquiry was not conceived as a post-election response to Adeleke’s victory.

It was announced before voters went to the polls.

From promised inquiry to a broader humanitarian response

The latest development came on Wednesday, August 19, when Adeleke received his Certificate of Return from INEC.

At the ceremony, the governor announced a ₦500 million endowment fund for victims of pre-election violence.

The Osun State Government said the fund would honour victims of the violence recorded before the August 15 election, while the Adeleke family separately offered full scholarships through university level for children of people who died in the violence.

The verification and compilation of beneficiaries will be handled by a special committee headed by the Speaker of the Osun State House of Assembly, Adewale Egbedun, according to the governor’s Special Assistant on Digital Media, Olalekan Badmus.

The government said beneficiaries would be drawn across political party lines.

That distinction is important. The proposed mechanism is not supposed to compensate only Adeleke’s supporters. It is presented as a humanitarian intervention for victims regardless of their political identity.

Governor Adeleke reportedly stressed that the election was over and that his responsibility had shifted from campaigning to governing, healing and rebuilding the state.

Why Osun needs more than a compensation fund

Money can help a bereaved family. It cannot establish who killed a person.

A scholarship can secure a child’s education. It cannot answer who ordered an attack.

An endowment can provide temporary relief. It cannot determine whether political violence was spontaneous, organised or deliberately financed.

That is why the proposed inquiry could become more important than the ₦500 million fund itself.

Osun’s pre-election period witnessed a series of competing allegations from the major political camps.

The Accord Party alleged attacks on its members, injuries and destruction of property in different communities. The party claimed that more than 20 of its members were receiving treatment for gunshot injuries at Okuku and alleged attacks on homes in Ikire.

Those claims were political allegations and should be tested by investigators rather than automatically accepted as established facts.

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There were also controversies involving APC figures. Senator Francis Fadahunsi was questioned by the Osun Police Command on August 12 over alleged inciting comments in a viral video.

Fadahunsi denied calling for physical attacks and said his words were a call to defeat the Accord Party at the ballot box.

The Speaker of the Osun state house of Assembly, Adewale Egbedun, also complained of alleged threats against him and other voters after his name reportedly appeared in a video involving APC House of Representatives candidate Francis Eniade.

He called for police investigation. These incidents demonstrate why an inquiry must not become a political courtroom.

The Speaker’s role will require careful handling

The choice of Egbedun to head the verification and compilation process also deserves scrutiny.

Egbedun is not an outsider to the political contest. He was deeply involved in the election period and himself complained of threats and alleged intimidation.

That does not automatically disqualify him from performing an administrative role. But if the wider commission is expected to investigate allegations involving actors from different political camps, its credibility will depend heavily on independence, transparent procedures and representation broad enough to command public confidence.

This is where Adeleke’s earlier promise of an independent commission becomes particularly important.

A committee verifying beneficiaries of a compensation fund is not necessarily the same thing as an independent body investigating the causes and perpetrators of electoral violence.

The distinction should be maintained.

What the inquiry should actually investigate

A serious commission should go beyond counting dead and injured victims.

It should establish:

Who died, where and when?

• Who was injured and under what circumstances?

• Which properties were destroyed or vandalised?

• Were attacks politically motivated?

• Were weapons used, and where did they come from?

• Were any security personnel involved in unlawful conduct?

• Were political actors involved in organising or financing violence?

• Were threats made before attacks occurred?

• Did security agencies receive warnings that were ignored?

• Were arrests lawful and properly documented?

• Did any political party or campaign organisation knowingly encourage violence?

• Who should face prosecution where evidence establishes criminal responsibility?

Those questions would turn the exercise from political theatre into an institutional record of what happened.

ValidViewNetwork had already raised the question

The latest announcement also gives renewed relevance to an issue previously raised by ValidViewNetwork during the tense pre-election period.

Our earlier report called for decisive action over allegations of political violence and urged the authorities to ensure that threats and alleged incitement were investigated rather than allowed to disappear after the election.

That earlier report stressed a simple principle: if an allegation is serious enough to threaten public safety, it is serious enough to investigate regardless of the politician involved.

The same principle must now guide the proposed inquiry. Osun cannot afford selective justice .

The August 15 election is over

INEC declared Adeleke the winner after he secured victory in 19 of Osun’s 30 local government areas, while APC candidate Bola Oyebamiji won 11.

The political contest has therefore produced a winner. The investigation, however, should not produce a predetermined culprit.

If an APC supporter committed an offence, the evidence should establish it. If an Accord supporter committed an offence, the same standard should apply. If a government official, security operative, political appointee or influential individual was involved, political status should offer no protection.

That is the real test of the exercise.

ValidViewNetwork reports that Osun now has an opportunity to do something rare in Nigerian electoral politics: investigate political violence after the votes have been counted, without allowing the search for justice to become another political contest.

The dead cannot vote. The injured cannot rewrite what happened.

But the state can still establish the truth. And if Adeleke’s proposed inquiry is genuinely independent, transparent and evidence-driven, it could become more than a response to the 2026 election.

It could create a precedent for making political violence in Osun harder to hide, harder to deny and harder to repeat. The election may be over. The accountability process should only be beginning.