The Labour Party, LP, led by Peter Obi, had hoped to make a significant impact in the governorship elections held in 28 states across Nigeria, particularly in the South-East region. However, the party failed to secure a single state, much to the disappointment of its supporters, who had expected the party to win some seats in a landslide. As of Tuesday, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, had declared official results in 24 states, with the ruling party, All Progressives Congress, APC, and the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, dominating the wins by clinching 15 and 8 states, respectively. The New Nigeria Peoples Party, NNPP, won only in Kano state.
The Obidients, as supporters of Peter Obi are known, remain hopeful of victory in some of the states where INEC declared the elections inconclusive, such as Adamawa, Kebbi, Abia, and Enugu, where collation of results was suspended due to a dispute between the Labour Party and the PDP over the results from some local government areas.
According to INEC, the APC won the governorship polls in 15 states, including Sokoto, Katsina, Jigawa, Gombe, Lagos, Kwara, Niger, Yobe, Nasarawa, Cross River, Ebonyi, Ogun, Benue, Kaduna, and Borno. Meanwhile, the PDP won eight states, including Plateau, Zamfara, Bauchi, Taraba, Oyo, Delta, Rivers, and Akwa Ibom states. The NNPP won only in Kano state.
In Abia and Enugu states, results have been delayed due to a dispute between the Labour Party and the PDP over the results from some local government areas. INEC has suspended further collation of the governorship election results pending a review of the process of the contentious balloting in parts of the two states.
INEC had previously declared Governors Seyi Makinde (Oyo, PDP), Dapo Abiodun (Ogun, APC), Muhammadu Yahaya (Gombe, APC), Babatunde Sanwo-Olu (Lagos, APC), Mai Mala Buni (Yobe, APC), and Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq (Kwara, APC) as the winners of the governorship elections. In addition, the PDP candidate in Akwa Ibom State, Pastor Umo Eno, and Dr. Dikko Radda of the APC in Katsina also emerged as the governors-elect. The APC candidates in Sokoto State, Ahmed Sokoto, and Jigawa State, Namadi Dammodi, were also declared governors-elect.
The anointed candidates of the Kano State Governor, Umar Ganduje; his counterpart for Plateau State, Simon Lalong, Aminu Tambuwal (Sokoto), and Samuel Ortom (Benue) were defeated by opposition parties. The NNPP won in Kano, with Abba Yusuf declared the governor-elect, defeating Yusuf Gawuna of the ruling APC. Gawuna, who is the deputy governor of the state, was Ganduje’s anointed candidate, while Yusuf was backed by the NNPP presidential candidate and ex-Kano governor, Rabiu Kwankwaso. Ahmad Ibrahim, the INEC returning officer, announced that Yusuf won the election with 1,019,602 votes, while Gawuna received 890,705 votes. Yusuf had contested against Ganduje in 2019 in a controversial election that went into supplementary polls in 28 out of the 44 local government areas in the state.
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