Osun 2026: ODA convenes election integrity summit, rallies INEC, stakeholders

The Osun Development Association (ODA) has finalised arrangements to host the Osun 2026 Democratic Governance, Peace and Electoral Integrity Summit, a high-level civic intervention designed to steer the state’s political discourse towards issue-based campaigning and away from rising tension ahead of the August governorship election.

The summit will be held on Thursday, 16 July 2026, at the Aurora Event Centre, Plot 6, New GRA, Osogbo, under the theme “Speak, Choose, Hold Accountable: Citizens at the Centre of Osun’s Democracy.”

The summit convened by ODA’s Leadership and Governance Committee (LEAD-GOV),  is a non-partisan response from the state’s elite diaspora and domestic civic community to recent reports of political violence, destruction of campaign materials, and personality-driven friction across Osun state.

“Osun state is at a critical democratic crossroads,” said Dr Tunji Olugbodi, chairman of ODA’s LEAD-GOV Committee.

 “We believe our state can, and must, set a national benchmark for peaceful, credible, and development-driven elections. This summit moves citizens from the periphery to the very centre of the democratic process, demanding institutional accountability from all political actors.”

The summit will bring together a broad coalition of institutional stakeholders under a single framework, including: The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), state command heads of security agencies, registered political parties and their respective governorship candidates, The Osun state chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and Muslim Ummah leadership, Traditional rulers, civil society organisations (CSOs), professional bodies, youth and women’s advocacy groups and the independent media corps.

A centre piece of the summit will be the formal unveiling and signing of three institutional outputs designed to outlast the election cycle. The institutional output include; The Osun 2026 Peace Charter, a binding, public commitment by all political parties and candidates to non-violence and issue-led campaigning, the governance accountability charter- a comprehensive, crowd sourced document setting out citizen’s expectations for the incoming administration and the summit communiqué,  a policy document outlining frameworks for pre- and post-election stability, to be circulated nationwide.