The governorship elections of March 9 have now been officially concluded, nearly a month after voters first headed to the poll.
Following a rash of supplementary polls, the final collation came in Rivers State on April 3 with the re-election of Governor Nyesom Wike.
Governors-elect in Bauchi and Adamawa emerged on March 26 and 29, respectively. All the three states were picked up by the PDP.
As PREMIUM TIMES highlighted in a March 24 update about how the two major parties won and lost states, governorship elections held in 29 of the 36 states this year.
Elections did not hold in Kogi, Osun, Edo, Ekiti, Bayelsa, Ondo and Anambra this year.
A breakdown of the results from the 29 states where elections held showed that the All Progressives Congress, which controls the centre, won in 15 states; while the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party emerged victorious in 14 states.
The current standing shows that the PDP had a net gain of states, while the APC had a net loss.
Going into the election, the APC was the incumbent party in Kebbi, Jigawa, Zamfara, Kano, Adamawa, Katsina, Bauchi, Kaduna, Borno, Yobe, Niger, Ogun, Plateau, Lagos, Nasarawa, Oyo and Imo. After the election, the party lost four states of Bauchi, Oyo, Adamawa and Imo.
The PDP was controlling Gombe, Enugu, Abia, Kwara, Cross River, Delta, Sokoto, Akwa-Ibom, Ebonyi, Benue, Rivers and Taraba. After the election, only Gombe and Kwara were lost to the APC, giving the PDP net edge of two states.
Unless some of the elections are overturned at the tribunal to flip states for either of the two major parties, or even another party entirely, the 29 states are likely to remain 15 for the APC and 14 for the PDP until the 2023 elections.
Already, Zamfara has been bedeviled by a legal tussle that could see the APC lose the state to the PDP. Days after the governorship poll was concluded, the Court of Appeal nullified APC’s participation in the election, throwing the state back into a pre-election crisis it thought had been surmounted when the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) finally decided to fill its candidates.
The commission has obeyed the court judgement and withheld certificates of return to all APC candidates in Zamfara, including the APC’s governor-elect. The matter is expected to drag up to the Supreme Court.
Adding the seven states where elections were not held to complete Nigeria’s total 36 states, the APC now has 20 states as of April 5. The party controls Ondo, Edo, Osun, Kogi and Ekiti. The PDP has 15 states, including Bayelsa, and the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) has one, Anambra.
Governorship elections in Kogi and Bayelsa are expected to hold at the end of this year. Ondo and Edo are scheduled for 2020; Anambra, 2021; while Osun and Ekiti would hold elections in 2022.
Final outcome from 29 states that took part in the March 9 governorship elections:
Abia
PDP 261,127
APC 99,574
Adamawa
PDP 376,552
APC 336,386
Akwa Ibom
PDP 520,163
APC 172,244
Bauchi
PDP 515,113
APC 500,625
Benue
PDP 434,473
APC 345,155
Borno
APC 1,175,445
PDP 66,215
Cross River
PDP 381,484
APC 131,161
Delta
PDP 925,274
APC 215,038
Ebonyi
PDP 393,049
APC 135,903
Enugu
PDP 449,935
APC 10,423
Gombe
APC 364,179
PDP 222,868
Imo
PDP 273,404
AA 190,364
Jigawa
APC 810,933
PDP 288,356
Kaduna
APC 1,044,710
PDP 814,168
Kano
PDP 1,024,713
APC 1,033,695
Katsina
APC 1,178,868
PDP 488,705
Kebbi
APC 673,717
PDP 102,625
Kwara
APC 331,546
PDP 115,310
Lagos
APC 739,445
PDP 206,141
Nasarawa
APC 327,229
PDP 184,259
Niger
APC 526,351
PDP 298,056
Ogun
APC 241,670
APM 222,153
Oyo
PDP 515,621
APC 357,982
Plateau
APC 562,109
PDP 559,437
Rivers
PDP 886,264
AAC 173,859
Sokoto
PDP 512,002
APC 511,660
Taraba
PDP 520,433
APC 362,735
Yobe
APC 444,013
PDP 95,803
Zamfara
APC 534,541
PDP 189,452.
