Afrobeats star, David Adeleke, popularly known as Davido, has claimed that Senate President Godswill Akpabio and billionaire businessman Aliko Dangote personally called him during the Osun State governorship election, appealing to him to delete posts he made on X while the results were being collated.

The singer, whose uncle, Ademola Adeleke, was declared winner of the August 15 election by the Independent National Electoral Commission, made the disclosure during an interview with News Central TV on Tuesday. He said the pressure came as he used his account, followed by tens of millions of people, to share polling unit results and question delays in uploading figures to INEC’s result viewing portal.

According to Davido, results were initially being uploaded every 30 minutes before the portal went quiet for several hours in the early morning. Suspecting an attempt to manipulate the outcome, he said he put out a post alleging that Akpabio was trying to reach the collation centre to halt the process.

That post, he said, triggered a wave of calls urging him to take it down. “They were calling me to delete. I said sorry o. You guys have literally just gone against my uncle… I can’t delete anything,” he recalled telling those who reached out to him.

He said Dangote also called him directly, but that he held firm, telling the businessman he would not delete anything until INEC officially announced the result.

Davido went further to allege that the All Progressives Congress deployed roughly ₦110 billion in an unsuccessful bid to sway the election, a figure he said he had confirmed from an insider within the political structure. He argued that had the attempt succeeded, it would have set a dangerous template for future elections in the country.

He also credited residents of Osun State with physically resisting individuals who tried to disrupt voting and seize ballot materials at some polling units, describing a level of public vigilance he said reflected widespread frustration with vote-buying and electoral interference.

The singer maintained that his family did not hand out money to voters on election day, saying they instead relied on the electorate to reject inducements from the opposing camp.

He described the contest as an uphill battle, claiming his uncle faced opposition from as many as 17 governors and 50 senators, and said he had done what he could for the Osun people using nothing more than his phone and social media reach.

Despite his public clash with Akpabio over the election, Davido described the Senate President as someone he regards almost like a godfather, suggesting the fallout was tied strictly to the heat of the moment rather than a lasting rift.

He also used the interview to touch on his role as chairman of the Osun State Sports Trust Fund, saying he now intends to pursue youth and sports projects, including a recreation centre with football pitches, swimming pools and basketball courts, now that the election is behind them.

INEC’s official results showed Adeleke, who ran under the Accord Party, polling 511,067 votes to defeat Bola Oyebamiji of the APC, who got 444,815 votes, with Najeem Salaam of the African Democratic Congress a distant third. Adeleke’s re-election extends a political lineage in the state that began with his late uncle, Isiaka Adeleke, who served as Osun’s first civilian governor in the early 1990s.

As of the time of Davido’s comments, neither Akpabio nor Dangote had publicly responded to the allegations.