The inability of seven state governors to endure the onslaught of the opposition candidates in the recent general elections
The March 18 gubernatorial and state assembly elections had been fought and lost but the startling results of the exercise will continue to tease bookies for years to come. Some governors who contested the election fell to the opposition members, while selected candidates of a few others were defeated.
The All Progressives Congress lost Lagos State, the basis of its presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, to the Labour Party standard bearer, Peter Obi. While the Lagos State Governor and APC candidate, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, was able to rally support for his re-election which he won resoundingly, some governors lost their states as they were swamped by the opposition candidates.
Zamfara State
For Governor Bello Matawalle of Zamfara State, the discovery that he lost the March 18 election to the opposition Peoples Democratic Party candidate, Dauda Lawal must have shocked him to the bone.
Yet the Independent National Electoral Commission declared Lawal who gathered 377,726 votes defeated Matawalle of the APC who polled 311,976. Interestingly, Matawalle became governor under the PDP before he converted to the APC.
Kano State
In Kano, Governor Umar Ganduje’s dream of giving over power to the APC gubernatorial candidate, Yusuf Gawuna slipped gone like the morning dew kissed by the sun. Abba Yusuf of the New Nigeria Peoples Party was proclaimed the winner of the elections. Not only that, but the party also secured 17 out of the 24 House of Representatives seats in addition to a considerable number of state assembly districts.
The NNPP was led by a former Kano state governor, Rabiu Kwakwanso. The INEC returning officer, Ahmad Ibrahim, stated that Yusuf won the election with 1,019,602 votes, whilst Gawuna who is the incumbent deputy governor received 890,705 votes.
Yusuf had contested against Ganduje in 2019 in what was viewed as a very controversial election, which went into supplementary polls in 28 out of the 44 local government districts in the state. After the end of the first poll, Yusuf was leading Ganduje with 26,655 votes. Yusuf, who was at the time the PDP candidate received 1,014,474 votes while Ganduje won 987,819 votes. Ganduje eventually won by getting 45,876 votes while Yusuf accumulated 10,239 in the supplementary polls.
The Kwankwasiyya movement supporters celebrated the NNPP’s win, defying the dusk-to-dawn curfew established by the state authorities to forestall an explosion of violence after the fear generated by the election outcome.
Plateau State
For the APC family on the plateau, this is not the greatest of conditions, having lost power to the opposition PDP which was expelled from the Government House by the APC in 2015 after governing the state for 16 years.
Despite Governor Simon Lalong’s best endeavours to install his handpicked candidate, Dr Nentawe Yilwatda as his successor, PDP’s Caleb Mutfwang emerged as the governor-elect. He won 525,299 votes to defeat the rival APC candidate, who had 481,370 votes. According to the results, the PDP triumphed in 10 LGAs while the APC prevailed in seven. Lalong, Director-General of the APC Presidential Campaign Committee also failed to secure the Plateau South Senatorial District seat. He was beaten by PDP’s Bali Napoleon, who earned 148,844 votes to the governor’s 91,674.
Benue State
It was a double setback for Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom. His senatorial aspirations failed to fly; he also failed to keep the PDP’s hold on power in the state. Before the election, pundits had gambled on APC’s Rev Fr Hyacinth Alia winning the governorship elections. True to predictions, the priest overcame the PDP candidate, Titus Uba to become the winner of the election. The result marked the second time a Catholic priest would become the governor of Benue State since it was created in 1976.
The priest received 473,933 votes to defeat Uba who had 223,914 votes and the Labour Party candidate, Hemma Hembe, who won 41,841 votes. With this development, Ortom may be one step away from political oblivion.
The same political tempest that swept over Ortom also clouded Governor Aminu Tambuwal’s desire of retaining the PDP in power in Sokoto State. The PDP candidate, Saidu Ubandoma, was no match for Ahmed Sokoto, his challenger, who won the polls.
The governor-elect, an ally of a former governor of Sokoto State and sitting senator, Aliyu Wamakko, was the deputy to Tambuwal during his first tenure between 2015 and 2019. In 2019, he contested against Tambuwal, a member of the PDP, and lost by a slim margin of 342 votes after a re-run.
Abia State
In Abia State, Enyinnaya Abaribe of the All Progressives Grand Alliance made mincemeat of Governor Okezie Ikpeazu’s bid to retire to the Senate like some of his fellow governors. Although he was still attempting to come to terms with this, the LP snatched the authority of the state from his party, the PDP, when Alex Otti was proclaimed the governor-elect.
Other bigwigs whose political careers were aborted include Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State who was defeated in his race for the Senate by Okechukwu Ezea of the Labour Party; Governor Darius Ishaku of Taraba State who lost the senatorial election to David Jimkuta of the APC as well as Kebbi governor, Abubakar Bagudu. He submitted to Adamu Aliero of the PDP in the Kebbi Central Senatorial District election.
In Yobe, the Speaker of the state House of Assembly, Ahmed Lawan, lost his seat in the house to Lawan Musa, a 34-year-old candidate of the PDP, for Nguru II Constituency. The Returning Officer for the election, Dr Habib Muhammad said Musa earned 6,648 votes to defeat Lawan of the APC who obtained 6,466 votes. Lawan, who belongs to Majakura village in Nguru LGA, had run for the councillorship seat for Majakura Ward in 2021 on the platform of the APC but lost.
Later on, he was taken and imprisoned by security officials twice for abusing the speaker on Facebook. Once he regained his freedom, Majakura residents reportedly pushed Musa to challenge the speaker in the elections. He followed their demand and received PDP’s ticket. The rest, as they say, is history.
The Yobe speaker was not the only one that struck the dust. His colleague in Zamfara State House of Assembly, Speaker Nasiru Magarya and his deputy, Musa Bawa Yankuzo, were both defeated by the PDP candidates in the state.
The returning officer for the Zurmi West Constituency election, Ismail Moriki, pronounced Bilyaminu Ismail as the winner of the election in the speaker’s constituency. Ismail polled 11,213 votes to defeat Magarya who garnered 9,530 votes. In a similar vein, the deputy speaker, Yankuzo, lost his re-election campaign to the PDP’s Bello Mazawaje, who received 21,197 votes ahead of Yankuzo’s 13, 820 votes.
The senator representing Enugu East in the National Assembly, Chimaroke Nnamani equally failed in his effort to return to the National Assembly. He was defeated by the Labour Party candidate, Kelvin Chukwu. Kelvin’s success was allegedly made possible by the horrible murder of his brother who was the senatorial challenger.
But Nnamani, a former Enugu State governor, blasted the LP presidential candidate, Peter Obi for his loss, accusing him of pursuing ‘’wicked and dangerous politics.’’ Following his loss, the former senator defected to the APC with his supporters.
Speaking on the elections, the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), expressed disappointment that certain candidates, notably those of the APC, lost their candidacies.
“I am sad that some candidates lost in the election. But I am pleased by the fact that people were able to make their judgment, to judge who won and who lost,” Buhari told the leaving United States Ambassador to Nigeria, Mary Beth Leonard, at the State House, Abuja.
Assessing the elections, a former Secretary General, of Arewa Consultative Forum, Anthony Sani, credited the wave of losses by incumbents and other experienced politicians to heightened political education among the electorates.
He commented, Replaced by upstarts: Govs, others lose to opposition candidates.
