The APC’s governorship candidate, Bola Oyebamiji, came second with a total of 444,815 votes, while Najeem Salaam of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) came a distant third with 17,180 votes.

Prior to the election, Adeleke and his Accord Party endorsed Tinubu as their presidential candidate for the 2027 election.

However, Baba-Ahmed insisted that the people of Osun State would reject the APC again in 2027.

Posting on X, he wrote: “I am not one of those supporting the conspiracy theory that the APC’s defeat in the Osun governorship election is a trade-off for the governor’s support for Tinubu in 2027.

“I prefer to believe Accord Party won fairly. I believe the APC can be defeated in fair elections. Osun State will reject it in 2027.

“The clumsy intervention by PBAT on EFCC/Osun State frozen funds just made everything worse. PBAT, even as a maximum president, has no power to stop EFCC’s operations.

“EFCC itself has damaged itself badly. It will be difficult not to see a good cop-bad cop game here.”

Posting on X, Olarenwaju warned that Nigerians would reject the APC in 2027, just as the people of Osun State did during Saturday’s governorship election.

He wrote: “The failure of the attempted rape of democracy in Osun State by the APC does not change what they are: a shameless bunch of selfish politicians with no regard for democracy who tried to force themselves on a people who do not want them. Nigeria will also reject you in 2027.

“For over two weeks, the APC laid siege to Osun State like bandits — harassing party chieftains, shooting and maiming people, and destroying state infrastructure to make Adeleke look bad.

“The marauding party even froze Osun accounts to cripple the government until Nigerians spoke up.

“I do not know this for a fact, so nobody should quote me, but I can bet that it was an APC governor supplying high-level intelligence to the Adeleke camp throughout yesterday evening on the activities of APC chieftains, in an effort to thwart the will of the people.

“There is no way to defeat the APC without working from inside the APC, and that’s one edge the ADC has with former Buhari men.”

Abdulaziz had earlier joined the NDC in the state and picked up its nomination form to contest the Dawakin Tofa/Tofa/Rimin Gado Federal Constituency seat.

Many people interpreted his move as aligning with the Kwankwasiyya movement of ex-governor Rabiu Kwankwaso, a long-time rival of his father.

However, ‎his return to APC comes after the deadline for obtaining nomination forms had closed.

‎Kano politics has for years been shaped by the rivalry between Kwankwaso’s Kwankwasiyya movement and Ganduje’s APC.

Abdulaziz’s earlier defection was seen as a boost to the Kwankwasiyya movement.