Political thugs invaded some polling units, chased voters away and disrupted voting in the 2026 Osun State governorship election, while the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System recorded a 15.3 per cent failure rate, the Kimpact Development Initiative has said.
The development was contained in the preliminary statement on the conduct of the election released by the Executive Director of KDI, Bukola Idowu, on Saturday.
The statement was based on early reports received through KDI’s Election Day Data Room, established to coordinate and analyse reports from its accredited observers across the state.
KDI deployed 370 trained and accredited observers across all 30 Local Government Areas, 332 wards and 1,660 polling units in Osun State.
The organisation said its preliminary assessment reflected reports received as of 12pm on Election Day and should not be regarded as a final assessment of the poll or its outcome.
On the performance of the BVAS, KDI said preliminary data showed an 84.7 per cent success rate and a 15.3 per cent failure rate among accreditation attempts captured by its monitoring system.
The organisation said BVAS-related challenges were particularly concentrated in Ifedayo, Ife North, Osogbo, Ayedaade, Irepodun, Iwo and Egbedore.
“The implication is that BVAS performance is emerging as an important operational variable in the early conduct of the election,” KDI said.
It added that the 15.3 per cent failure rate required continued attention, particularly in areas where technical difficulties coincided with long accreditation times or voter queues.
KDI also reported delays in the arrival of electoral officials in several parts of the state.
According to the organisation, 56.1 per cent of polling units that reported to the data room recorded the arrival of INEC officials early or on time, while 43 per cent reported late arrival.
The highest concentration of late-arrival reports was recorded in Ifedayo, Osogbo, Ola-Oluwa, Ayedaade, Iwo, Ayedire, Atakumosa West, Odo-Otin and Irepodun.
Despite the delays, KDI said the condition of election materials was generally positive.
It said 98.9 per cent of reports indicated that election materials were intact, while 1.1 per cent reported materials that were not intact.
The organisation said one reported case involved a missing or unavailable BVAS at Open Space Awobiogun Junction, Western Sun International Hotel, Ward Alajue II, Ede South Local Government Area.
It said the device was subsequently sent from the Registration Area Centre in less than 20 minutes.
On the commencement of voting, KDI said 79.3 per cent of observed polling units commenced operations before 8:45am.
Another 19.8 per cent commenced between 8:45am and 9:59am, while 0.9 per cent started at 10am or later.
The organisation said the delays could place additional pressure on polling operations as the process progresses.
KDI also raised concerns over interference by party agents and security personnel.
It said the Election Day Data Room recorded 17 reports of party-agent interference and seven reports of security-agent interference in polling activities.
The organisation, however, said the reported cases remained limited relative to the volume of observations received.
On vote trading, KDI said it had received 19 reports from 2,127 reports submitted to its data room as of the time of the assessment.
The figure represented approximately 0.9 per cent of the reports received.
It said party supporters, party agents and community leaders were among those identified in connection with reported cases of voter inducement.
The reports were concentrated in Odo-Otin, followed by Irepodun, Ife North and Osogbo.
The organisation said the pattern required further monitoring to establish the scale of the alleged inducement and whether it was connected to intimidation or other forms of political interference.
On security, KDI reported three violence-related incidents as of noon.
It said the incidents were recorded in Ife East, Ejigbo and Ilesa West Local Government Areas.
According to the organisation, political thugs allegedly invaded a polling unit in Modakeke Ward 3, Ife East, chased voters away and snatched election materials.
In Ejigbo LGA, Ward 4, Unit 13, KDI reported an alleged incident involving political thugs.
It also reported that police officers allegedly invaded a Registration Area Centre in Ife East and fired tear gas to disrupt the distribution of election materials.
The materials were allegedly carted away.
In Ilesa West LGA, Ward 8, Unit 7, political thugs allegedly disrupted the polling unit and chased voters away.
KDI, however, noted that the early picture of election-day violence was significantly lower than the level recorded during the pre-election period.
Its pre-election monitoring recorded 81 election-related violence incidents and 15 fatalities between October 2025 and August 2026.
“The minute number of verified election-day violence reports received by the 12:00 pm cut-off is therefore encouraging,” the organisation said.
It cautioned, however, that the development should not be interpreted as evidence that security risks had disappeared.
KDI said the conduct of security agencies would remain important as voting progressed into counting and collation.
“The more immediate analytical concern is whether security presence remains professional, proportionate and non-interfering as voter turnout, political actors respond to emerging results, and polling moves into counting and collation,” it said.
The organisation said its observers would continue monitoring the process through the close of polls, counting, completion and handling of result forms, electronic results management and collation.
KDI said it would issue a comprehensive end-of-day statement after receiving, verifying, cleaning and analysing the full set of reports.
It urged all stakeholders to maintain peace, respect voters’ rights and allow electoral officials and authorised actors to complete the remaining stages of the process without intimidation, violence or undue interference.
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