The violence that shadowed the build-up to the Osun State governorship election is another disturbing reminder that, nearly three decades into the Fourth Republic, sections of Nigeria’s political class have yet to embrace one of democracy’s simplest principles: an election is a contest for public service, not a war for territorial conquest.
In the months preceding the August 15 governorship election, Osun witnessed killings, shootings, attacks on political supporters, destruction of property and clashes involving suspected political thugs. The violence became sufficiently serious for civil society organisations and student groups to stage protests, while political parties repeatedly traded accusations over responsibility for the bloodshed. In July, the National Peace Committee, through The Kukah Centre, identified 15 of the state’s local government areas as vulnerable to election-related violence, with Osogbo and Irewole classified among the most critical areas.
This is unacceptable. No governorship election is worth the life of a single Nigerian. Yet the desperation with which politicians pursue public office repeatedly suggests that this elementary truth has not sufficiently penetrated Nigeria’s political culture. Elections that should provide citizens with opportunities to choose between competing programmes and candidates instead become occasions for intimidation, bloodletting and fear.
Osun’s Election Violence Shows How Dangerous Nigerian Politics Has Become
Osun’s troubles did not begin on the eve of the election. The political atmosphere had been deteriorating for months. The violent confrontation surrounding control of local government secretariats in February 2025 reportedly claimed six lives, including that of the returning chairman of Irewole Local Government Area, Remi Abbas. Rather than being decisively contained, violence continued to surface in different parts of the state. By June 2026, shootings and clashes had been reported in communities including Ile-Ife and parts of Osogbo, while political actors exchanged allegations over responsibility.
In July, two residents were reportedly killed and several others injured in another round of violence in Osogbo, with 19 vehicles vandalised. Even the electoral process itself was not spared. Gunmen attacked an Independent National Electoral Commission PVC distribution centre in Odo-Otin Local Government Area and reportedly escaped with three packs of Permanent Voter Cards.
These incidents should trouble every Nigerian, irrespective of political affiliation.
The immediate temptation is for the competing political parties to blame one another, as they have repeatedly done. But accusations and counter-accusations cannot substitute for criminal investigation. Where people have been killed, the relevant question is not which party issued the more persuasive press statement. It is who pulled the trigger, who supplied the weapons, who financed the attackers and who instructed them to act.
Political Impunity Is Fueling Nigeria’s Cycle of Electoral Violence
This is where Nigeria’s security and justice institutions have repeatedly failed.
Political violence persists because its perpetrators have little reason to fear consequences. Thugs are recruited during elections, armed and unleashed against opponents, only to disappear into communities after the votes have been counted. Their sponsors frequently remain beyond the reach of prosecution. Indeed, investigations by Sunday PUNCH indicated that, apart from suspects linked to one of the killings arising from the local government crisis, many alleged perpetrators of other violent incidents had not been prosecuted.
Impunity is therefore fertilising the next round of violence.
The police must break this cycle. Every killing connected with the Osun political crisis deserves investigation irrespective of the party affiliation of the victim or alleged perpetrator. Arresting street-level thugs is insufficient. Investigators must follow the trail to those who finance, arm and direct them. A politician who supplies weapons or money for political violence is no less culpable than the thug who carries out the attack.
The political parties themselves also have questions to answer. Nigeria’s major parties routinely sign peace accords and issue statements committing themselves to peaceful elections. Such ceremonies are useful, but they have become almost ritualistic. Candidates shake hands before cameras while supporters sometimes continue threatening one another outside the venue.
Peace accords will remain largely symbolic until political parties impose meaningful sanctions on members associated with violence. A candidate or party official credibly implicated in sponsoring thugs should face disciplinary action and, where evidence establishes criminal conduct, prosecution. Political ambition cannot confer immunity from the law.
More fundamentally, Nigeria must confront the economics of its do-or-die politics. Political offices have become excessively attractive because control of government often provides enormous access to public resources, patronage and influence. The stakes are consequently so high that losing an election is treated by some politicians not as a temporary democratic setback but as an existential catastrophe. Until public office becomes more about service and less about access to state resources, desperate politicians will continue to regard elections as battles that must be won by almost any means.
The consequences extend beyond those directly involved in political clashes. Violence suppresses participation. A trader, civil servant, student or elderly citizen who believes that leaving home to vote could place his life at risk may simply stay indoors. When fear keeps citizens away from polling units, political violence has already interfered with the democratic process even if every ballot eventually cast is properly counted.
Nigeria has travelled this road for too long. The country’s electoral history is littered with ballot-box snatching, assassinations, intimidation and post-election bloodshed. Hundreds died following the 2011 general election, while violence also accompanied subsequent electoral cycles. Osun itself experienced deadly electoral violence during the 2007 governorship and House of Assembly elections.
After 27 years of uninterrupted civilian rule, this should no longer be considered an inevitable feature of Nigerian elections.
The responsibility falls first on politicians. They must understand that democracy provides another election, another campaign and another opportunity to persuade voters. Losing an election is not the end of political life. Killing a citizen, however, ends a life permanently.
Security agencies must equally demonstrate that electoral violence has consequences. Investigations into the killings and attacks recorded in Osun should not disappear now that the election has arrived. The perpetrators and, crucially, their sponsors must be identified and prosecuted.
Nigeria cannot continue conducting elections under conditions that resemble preparations for war. Democracy is supposed to replace violence with ballots and political warfare with peaceful competition. When citizens are killed merely because politicians want office, something fundamental has gone wrong.
Osun’s pre-election bloodshed is therefore more than a stain on one governorship contest. It is another indictment of a political culture that still places victory above human life. Until Nigeria makes political violence costly for those who sponsor and perpetrate it, peace accords, security deployments and appeals for calm will remain inadequate responses to a problem the country should have outgrown long ago.
