Ballot sorting and counting have begun at verified polling units in Osun State as Saturday’s governorship election moves from voting into its next critical phase.
At 3:20 p.m., ballot sorting was underway at Ward 8, Unit 7 in Ilesa, according to live reporting from The Nation. Separately, The Sun reported that sorting and counting had begun by 3:01 p.m. at Ward 007, Polling Unit 3 in Alagba, Osogbo.
The developments establish that counting has started in parts of the state.
They do not establish a statewide result, a candidate lead or completion of voting everywhere.
Voting Continued Beyond the Cutoff for Some Voters
INEC’s voting cutoff was 2:30 p.m., but voters who had joined queues before the deadline were permitted to complete the process.
Live reporting from Ejigbo showed voting continuing after 2:30 p.m. for eligible voters already in line while security personnel prevented new arrivals from joining the queue.
That means Osun remained in a mixed election phase during the afternoon: some polling units had begun counting while voting was still being completed elsewhere.
Counting Is Not Yet a Statewide Result
Polling-unit counting is the first stage of the results process.
Result sheets may subsequently appear on INEC’s Result Viewing Portal, IReV, which is designed to display scanned polling-unit result forms. Those uploads provide transparency at polling-unit level but do not replace formal collation and declaration by the appropriate returning officer.
IDNN will therefore distinguish between:
- polling-unit counts;
- uploaded polling-unit result forms;
- ward and local-government collation;
- the formally declared statewide result.
No polling-unit figure, party-agent tally or media aggregate will be presented as proof of the governorship outcome before its status is established.
Earlier Polling Opened Across Most Units, INEC Said
INEC had earlier reported that 3,556 of Osun’s 3,763 polling units — 94.5 per cent — were operational by 8:30 a.m., with delayed units becoming operational by 9 a.m.
That early logistical picture has now given way to the more consequential phase of the election: whether votes counted at polling units move transparently through the collation chain.
Collation Becomes the Accountability Test
The next material milestone is no longer simply whether voting took place.
It is whether polling-unit results can be traced through ward and local-government collation without unexplained alteration, whether disputed incidents are properly documented and whether INEC maintains clear control of the formal result process.
At the latest IDNN source check, counting had begun at verified polling units, but no complete statewide result or official winner had been established.
IDNN will update the live file when verified ward or local-government collation begins, when INEC announces a formal collation milestone, or when a material security or electoral incident changes the status of the poll.