Olushola Omogbehin
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has announced the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and incumbent governor of Ekiti State, Biodun Oyebanji, as the winner of the June 20 governorship election.
Oyebanji defeated the candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dr Wole Oluyede and Amb. Dare Bejide of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) who were his close rivals in the election to emerge as the winner.
At the State’s INEC office, Prof. Adenike Oladiji, who is the Returning Officer declared that Oyebanji scored 319,224 votes, while his closest challenger, Oluyede scored 40,543 votes, and Bejide secured 12,872 votes.
In her analysis, while INEC registered 988,251 voters in the election, 384,940 voters were accredited to participate, while a total of 382,109 votes were cast across the 16 local government areas of the state.
However, 375,777 votes were declared valid and 6,332 declared rejected.
She therefore declared that having satisfied the requirements of the law and scored the highest number of votes cast, Biodun Oyebanji of the APC was duly elected as the winner of the election in the state.
The over 300,000 votes recorded in the 2026 governorship election is the first in the history of the state since the inception of democratic government compared to votes obtained in past elections.
Oyebanji has also become the first governor in the history of the state to win election back to back.
