The incumbent governor of Oyo State, Seyi Makinde, has taken an early lead in the governorship election in the state.
The results of 18 of the state’s 33 local governments have been formally announced by the electoral commission, INEC, at the collation centre in Ibadan, the state capital.
Mr Makinde’s PDP has won in all but one the local governments so far declared at the collation centre.
Mr Makinde’s main challenger, Teslim Folarin of the APC, trailed the governor in most of the local governments but won in Irepo local government.
Mr Makinde has so far polled a total vote of 281,152 votes against Mr Folarin who has 128,971 votes.
History of Rivalry
Messrs Makinde and Folarin have a history of competing against each other.
Mr Folarin was the PDP governorship candidate in the 2015 election while Mr Makinde was the governorship candidate of Social Democratic Party (SDP). They both lost to the late former governor, Abiola Ajimobi, who was the then governorship candidate of APC.
The two candidates hail from Ibadan, the state capital, that has produced four out of the five governors in the state since 1999.
Aside from the incumbent governor, other Ibadan-born governors that have governed the state are: Lam Adesina (1999 – 2003), Rasheed Ladoja (2003 – 2007), and Abiola Ajimobi (2011 – 2019).
The late Adebayo Alao-Akala was from Ogbomoso and he ruled the state between 2007 and 2011.
