By Seyi Gesinde
August 14, 2026
There is something unsettling about an election that needs this much preparation to remain an election.
A DIG.
30 Commissioners of Police.
15,000 police personnel.
Helicopters.
Drones.
Mobile Police units.
Show of force.
Movement restrictions.
All of this around the simple democratic act of choosing who should govern a state.
One person.
One ballot.
One choice.
One result.
And suddenly, the ballot paper appears to require an entire security architecture.
Nobody should misunderstand the point.
Elections must be protected.
Voters must be protected.
INEC officials must be protected.
Electoral materials must be protected.
Thugs must be stopped.
Ballot boxes must not be snatched.
Lives must not be lost.
Nobody should want an election in which violence becomes the language of political competition.
ALSO READ: Until you win
But there is another question.
A rather uncomfortable one.
What has happened to our politics that a ballot requires this much force to survive?
Because the ballot itself is harmless.
It does not carry a weapon.
It does not threaten anybody.
It does not attack anybody.
It merely asks a citizen to choose.
So where exactly is the danger coming from?
Perhaps not from the ballot.
Perhaps from what people have turned the ballot into.
An election is supposed to be a peaceful argument.
You say your candidate is better.
I say mine is better.
You present your record.
I present mine.
You make your promises.
I make mine.
The people listen.
The people decide.
One wins.
One loses.
And life continues.
That is democracy.
Or at least, that is what democracy was supposed to make possible.
Then reality arrives with 15,000 policemen.
The irony is difficult to miss.
We tell citizens that their votes are powerful.
Then we surround the voting process with enough security to make the exercise look like something extraordinarily dangerous.
We tell politicians that democracy is about persuasion.
Then we prepare thousands of policemen in case persuasion fails.
We tell candidates to accept the will of the people.
Then we deploy a DIG, 30 CPs, helicopters and drones to ensure that nobody decides to reject it violently.
Perhaps the most revealing thing about all this is not the number of policemen.
It is what the number says about us.
Security is necessary.
ALSO READ: About to give birth
But the scale of security also tells a story about the scale of our political anxiety.
And that story deserves to be examined.
There is a profound difference between protecting an election and making an election look like something that must be protected from an approaching enemy.
That distinction matters.
Because security is supposed to create confidence.
But an extraordinary show of force can also communicate something else.
That something terrible may happen.
That the contest is dangerous.
That the political stakes are so high that the state must surround the citizen before the citizen can exercise his most basic democratic right.
And perhaps that is the question Osun should be asking itself.
What exactly are we preparing for?
Why must choosing a governor generate the security language of a crisis?
Why does a political contest repeatedly produce the fear that somebody might respond to losing with violence?
Why has political defeat become so frightening that an election requires such an extraordinary security presence before the first vote is even cast?
The philosopher Karl Popper asked one of the most important questions in political thought.
Not merely, who should rule?
But, how can we organise political institutions so that rulers cannot cause too much harm?
That question is remarkably relevant here.
Because democracy is not merely about finding the perfect ruler.
It is about creating a system in which power remains temporary, accountable and replaceable.
A governor is not the state.
A political party is not the state.
A political victory is not ownership of the state.
And political defeat is not the destruction of a person.
If we understood that properly, perhaps elections would become less frightening.
John Stuart Mill’s defence of liberty carries another lesson.
A free society must permit disagreement.
People must be able to argue, persuade, oppose and eventually accept the decision produced by a legitimate process.
That is the beauty of an election.
It provides a peaceful mechanism for settling political disagreement.
The ballot is civilisation’s alternative to the bullet.
The ballot says,
You may defeat me at the polls.
The bullet says,
You must not defeat me at all.
The first is democracy.
The second is its collapse.
And that is why the police should not have to become the most visible expression of democratic stability.
They should protect the process.
But political maturity should sustain it.
The police can secure a polling unit.
They cannot secure political maturity.
They can arrest a thug.
They cannot arrest the political culture that makes the thug useful.
They can protect a ballot box.
They cannot protect democracy from politicians who believe that losing is unacceptable.
They can patrol a community.
They cannot patrol the conscience of a candidate.
That work belongs to the political class.
And perhaps to the electorate too.
Because voters also have a responsibility to reject the mentality that turns political opponents into enemies.
Your neighbour may vote differently from you.
He remains your neighbour.
Your friend may support another candidate.
He remains your friend.
Your community may produce a different political preference.
It remains your community.
An election should not destroy the social fabric that the winner will eventually be expected to govern.
ALSO READ: The courage to become
That is why the real security of an election begins long before Election Day.
It begins when candidates learn that they can lose without being humiliated.
It begins when supporters learn that victory does not give them permission to intimidate others.
It begins when political parties understand that government is a public trust, not a private inheritance.
It begins when the winner understands that those who voted against him are still citizens.
It begins when the loser understands that defeat is not death.
And it begins when everybody understands one simple truth.
Government changes hands. The people remain.
Perhaps that is what makes the spectacle of 15,000 policemen so thought provoking.
After the election, the DIG will leave.
The CPs will leave.
The helicopters will leave.
The drones will leave.
The Mobile Police units will return to their commands.
The restrictions will end.
The roads will reopen.
The political parties will return to their offices.
And the people of Osun will still have to live together.
They will still use the same roads.
Buy from the same markets.
Send their children to the same schools.
Farm the same land.
Attend the same churches and mosques.
Share the same communities.
So perhaps the election is not only about who wins.
It is also about whether the society remains intact enough for the winner to govern.
That is the part no security deployment can guarantee.
Because there is a strange paradox at the heart of democracy.
The state can deploy thousands of policemen to prevent violence.
But only citizens and political leaders can create a culture in which violence becomes unnecessary.
The state can secure the ballot.
But only political maturity can secure the meaning of the ballot.
The state can protect the result.
But only the contestants can protect the peace that must follow it.
So let Osun vote.
Let the police protect the voters.
Let the security agencies do their duty.
Let nobody intimidate anybody.
Let nobody steal anybody’s vote.
Let nobody turn political ambition into bloodshed.
ALSO READ: When poverty becomes a political strategy
But when the last ballot has been counted, another test will begin.
Will the winner govern without revenge?
Will the loser accept defeat without destruction?
Will supporters return home without looking for enemies?
Will neighbours remain neighbours?
Because perhaps that is the election we should be preparing for too.
Not merely the election that decides who enters the Government House.
The election that decides whether democracy can still settle our disagreements without making the police look like the most important participants in the process.
And after all the DIGs, CPs, policemen, helicopters and drones have gone, one question may still remain suspended over Osun.
What exactly were we preparing for?
