Jigawa Governor-elect Umar Namadi is recognized by INEC.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate Umar Namadi has been proclaimed the victor of the March 18 governorship election in Jigawa State by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The PDP’s Mustafa Lamido received 368,726 votes, while Aminu Ringim of the New Nigerian People’s Party (NNPP) received 37,156 votes, making the deputy governor and former commissioner of finance in the North-West state the winner with 618,449 votes.

Abubakar Badaru, the current APC president, will be replaced by Namadi on May 29, 2023, at the end of his two-term, eight-year term.

On Saturday, governorship elections were held in 28 of Nigeria’s 36 states. A court case compelled INEC to hold the gubernatorial and state assembly elections sooner than originally planned, a week later than planned.

Governorship elections take place during a “off-season” in eight of the 36 states: Anambra, Bayelsa, Edo, Ekiti, Imo, Kogi, Osun, and Ondo.

In alphabetical order, the 28 states where governorship elections were on March 18 are Abia, Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Bauchi, Benue, Borno, Cross River, Delta, Ebonyi, Enugu, Gombe, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Kwara, Lagos, Nasarawa, Niger, Ogun, Oyo, Plateau, Rivers, Sokoto, Taraba, Yobe, Zamfara.

Among the 28 states, 11 of the current governors ran for reelection, and 17 of the outgoing governors are nearing the end of their constitutionally mandated two terms of eight years after taking office on May 29, 2015.