2023 Niger State gubernatorial election


The 2023 Niger State gubernatorial election was held on 18 March 2023, to elect the Governor of Niger State, concurrent with elections to the Niger State House of Assembly as well as twenty-seven other gubernatorial elections and elections to all other state houses of assembly. The election — which was postponed from its original 11 March date — will be held three weeks after the presidential election and National Assembly elections. Incumbent APC Governor Abubakar Sani Bello was term-limited and could not seek re-election to a third term. Mohammed Umar Bago — House of Representatives member for Chanchaga — retained the office for the APC by a margin of 9.4% over former commissioner Isah Liman Kantigi, the PDP nominee.
Party primaries were scheduled for between 4 April and 9 June 2022 with the All Progressives Congress nominating Bago on 26 May while the Peoples Democratic Party nominated Kantigi on the same day after its primary was postponed by 24 hours.
Two days after the election, INEC declared Bago as the victor with him winning nearly 470,000 votes to defeat Kantigi with around 387,000 votes. Kantigi called Bago to concede the race after the results declaration, later confirming that he would not challenge the election at the tribunal.

Electoral system

The governor of Niger State is elected using a modified two-round system. To be elected in the first round, a candidate must receive the plurality of the vote and over 25% of the vote in at least two-thirds of state local government areas. If no candidate passes this threshold, a second round will be held between the top candidate and the next candidate to have received a plurality of votes in the highest number of local government areas.

Background

Niger State is a large, diverse state in the North Central with agricultural and energy potential but facing a debilitated health sector and intense challenges in security as the nationwide kidnapping epidemic, bandit conflict, and herder–farmer clashes have all heavily affected the state with added fears of ISWAP encroachment.
Politically, the state's 2019 elections were a solidification of the control of the state APC. In federal elections, Buhari retained the state presidentially while the APC swept all three senate seats and ten House of Representatives seats. On the state level, the party also held the governorship and kept the majority in the House of Assembly.
Ahead of his second term, Bello pledged to focus on education, increasing agricultural production, affordable housing, and improving access to clean drinking water. In terms of his performance, Bello was praised for expanding the energy sector but was criticized for failing to combat rising insecurity, poor road infrastructure, a failure to pay teacher salaries and the ensuing educator strike, having a political opponent imprisoned, and his role in the March 2022 APC leadership crisis.

Primary elections

The primaries, along with any potential challenges to primary results, were to take place between 4 April and 3 June 2022 but the deadline was extended to 9 June. An informal zoning gentlemen's agreement sets the Niger South Senatorial District to produce the next governor as someone from Niger South has not held the governorship since 2007. While only the PDP has closed their primaries to non-Southern candidates, nearly all potential candidates are from the South and it appears as if both major parties are holding to the zoning agreement.

All Progressives Congress

In the days before the primary, controversy arose over the alleged manipulation of the delegate list for the primary. By the primary date, the exercise was peacefully held in Minna and resulted in a 15% margin of victory for Mohammed Umar Bago, a House of Representatives member. In his acceptance speech, Bago thanked delegates while noting that the primary was only the beginning of the campaign. On 4 July, the state APC announced Yakubu Garba—the state NLC chairman—as Bago's running mate in a press release.

Nominated

Eliminated in primary

Declined

People's Democratic Party

In June 2020, Niger PDP then-Caretaker Committee Chairman Garba Umaru announced that the party had zoned their gubernatorial nomination to Niger South Senatorial District as a part of an internal party deal to cede the deputy gubernatorial slot to Niger East Senatorial District while Niger South would hold the party chairmanship until handing over to Niger North. Zoning the PDP nomination to Niger South was reaffirmed in February 2022 by now-state party chairman Tanko Beji and other state party leaders. By April 2022, the state party leadership also intended to use the consensus method for the nomination with a meeting resulting in Isah Liman Kantigi's emergence as the intended nominee but the plan fell through when some rival candidates rejected the arrangement and bought forms anyway.
On the primary date, four of the five candidates lead protests against the alleged manipulation of the delegate list in favour of Kantigi. The protests forced primary committee chairman Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo to postpone the primary until the next day. On 26 May, the five candidates finally contested the indirect primary that ended with Kantigi emerging as the PDP nominee after results showed him winning over 80% of delegates' votes. A few weeks later, Samuel Gomna was picked as the deputy gubernatorial nominee; it was noted that Gomna was a Christian making the ticket the first religiously diverse PDP ticket since 2007. In November, a lawsuit from Mohammed Sani Idris Legbo Kutigi that challenged the primary results was dismissed.

Nominated

Eliminated in primary

Withdrew

Minor parties

  • Salaudeen Abdulazeez Oyeniyi
  • *Running mate: Yusuf Ibrahim
  • Mohammed Idris
  • *Running mate: Muhammad Tukur Muhammad
  • Saidu Abdulmalik
  • *Running mate: Angela Bala
  • Mohammed Bello Isah
  • *Running mate: Abdulrahman Mustapha
  • Yahaya Dan'Baba Dauda
  • *Running mate: Jacob Adams
  • Aliyu Muhammad
  • *Running mate: Audu Mohammed
  • Khadija Abdullahi-Iya
  • *Running mate: Mohammed Kudu Ndayako
  • Joshua Nuhu Bawa
  • *Running mate: Ibrahim Alhassan
  • Yahaya Ibrahim Mohammed
  • *Running mate: John Paul Bahago
  • Ibrahim Abubakar
  • *Running mate: Emmanuel Baba Pada
  • Abdulkadir Lawu Bahari
  • *Running mate: Badaru Adamu Yunusa
  • Bukhari Yakubu Yarima
  • *Running mate: Rakiya Umar
  • Umar Larat Aliyu
  • *Running mate: Zakariyya Muhammad Adam

Campaign

After the primaries, the major party nominees—mostly Bago —spent months attempting to reconcile with aggrieved members of their own parties. Bago went on a reconciliatory tour around the state to meet party members; these APC reconciliation attempts occurred all while the PDP conversely tried to woo aggrieved APC members into the party. Analysts questioned the effectiveness of Bago's tour, especially amid other disputes within the state APC. In early 2023, campaign analysis focused on the divides between urban-rural electorates with reports stating that Bago led in his native city of Minna while Kantigi led in Nupe-majority rural communities of the state's south. But the campaign was derailed by controversy in mid-February, when a video surfaced showing Kantigi issuing death threats against voters who planned to take his bribes but not eventually vote for him. Later in February, attention largely switched to the presidential election on 25 February. In the election, Niger State voted for Bola Tinubu ; Tinubu won 48.2% of the vote, beating the 36.6% of Atiku Abubakar and the 10.3% of Peter Obi. In the wake of the result, the EiE-SBM forecast projected Bago to win.

Conduct

Pre-election

Due to widespread insecurity in the state, civil society groups raised concern about the safe conduct of the election in heavily insecure areas.

General election

By senatorial district

The results of the election by senatorial district.

By federal constituency

The results of the election by federal constituency.

By local government area

The results of the election by local government area.