The 2023 Kano State gubernatorial election took place on 18 March 2023, to elect the Governor of Kano State, concurrent with elections to the Kano 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, was held three weeks after the presidential election and National Assembly elections. Incumbent APC Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje was term-limited and could not seek re-election to a third term. Abba Kabir Yusuf — a former commissioner and son-in-law of former Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso — gained the office for the NNPP by a 6.5% margin over Deputy Governor Nasir Yusuf Gawuna, the APC nominee.
Party primaries were scheduled for between 4 April and 9 June 2022 with the All Progressives Congress nominating Gawuna on 26 May while the New Nigeria Peoples Party nominated Yusuf on 6 June. For the Peoples Democratic Party, two separate parallel primaries were held on 25 May with one primary nominating Mohammed Abacha — the son and bagman of former military leader Sani Abacha — while the other primary picked former commissioner Sadiq Wali; about a month after the primaries, INEC recognized Abacha as the legitimate nominee but switched recognition to Wali by July. Recognition returned to Abacha in December due to the ruling of a Federal High Court, but returned to Wali due to a Court of Appeal judgment in February 2023.
In the early morning of 20 March, Yusuf was declared the winner by INEC after results showed him winning nearly 1.02 million votes (~52% of the vote) compared to Gawuna's total of about 891,000 votes (~45% of the vote) while Wali came a distant third place with nearly 16,000 votes (less than 1% of the vote). Although Gawuna conceded defeat on 29 March, the state APC rejected the results and commenced a legal battle that initially succeeded as judgements from the election tribunal in September and the Court of Appeal in November overturned the result and declared Gawuna as the rightful winner. However, the Supreme Court upheld the election of Yusuf in a January 2024 ruling. Much like the election period, the post-election legal battles led to tensions across the state with sporadic protests and unrest.
Electoral system The Governor of Kano 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 Kano State is a highly populated northwestern state mainly inhabited by ethnic Hausas and Fulanis but with significant non-indigenous populations of Igbo, Yoruba, and other ethnicities. The state has a growing economy but is facing an underdeveloped agricultural sector, overcrowded urban areas, desertification, and relatively low education rates.
Politically, the state's 2019 elections were categorized as a reassertion of the APC's federal dominance after mass 2018 defections away from the party led by outgoing Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso and his allies. The APC was mainly successful federally, unseating almost all PDP senators and house members to sweep most House of Representatives and all three senate seats as the state was easily won by APC presidential nominee Muhammadu Buhari with over 75% but still swung towards the PDP and had lower turnout. However, state level elections were much closer as Umar Ganduje needed a disputed supplementary election to barely beat the PDP's Abba Kabir Yusuf; the House of Assembly elections were also closer but the APC won a sizeable majority. During the 2019–2023 term, Kwankwaso's early 2022 party switch to the NNPP was followed by a swell in defections to the party with over a dozen House of Assembly members and several federal lawmakers defected from both the major parties to the NNPP, swiftly making it into the second largest party in Kano State.
Ahead of Umar Ganduje's second term, his administration stated focuses included water resource management, education, healthcare, agricultural development, combating drug abuse, rural development, and security. In terms of his performance, Umar Ganduje was praised for attempting to return out-of-school children to school, calling for restrictions on herding, and education policy. However, he faced criticism for his feud with the then-Emir of Kano Muhammadu Sanusi II which led to the sacking and illegal forced exile of the emir, briefly banning people of different sexes from riding the same commercial tricycles, downplaying the COVID-19 pandemic, alleged anti-Christian sentiment in the state government and infringements on constitutionally-mandated secularism, further corruption, a series of questionable awards he received in an attempt to rebuild his public image, and nepotism. Umar Ganduje also came over fire for his moves to silence journalists through attempting to interfere with media houses but most notably, when he threatened to "deal with" Jaafar Jaafar (the journalist who exposed videos of Umar Ganduje taking bribes during his first term) and eventually forced Jaafar into self-imposed exile.
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. According to some candidates and community leaders from the state's south, an informal zoning gentlemen's agreement sets the Kano South Senatorial District to have the next governor as since the 1999 return of democracy, all Kano governors have come from either the Kano Central or Kano North senatorial districts. However, no major party has yet closed their primaries to candidates from the central or northern regions.
All Progressives Congress Analysts view the APC gubernatorial primary as a likely battle between the preexisting major factions within the Kano State APC, namely: the faction led by outgoing Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje and the G-7 group, led by Kano Central Senator and former Governor Ibrahim Shekarau along with Kano North Senator Barau Jibrin. Tensions between the factions reached a head in late 2021 when Umar Ganduje's faction held a parallel party congress and elected separate leadership to the G-7 bloc's congress; courts first ruled that the results of the G-7 congress were legitimate before an appeal gave the legitimacy to Umar Ganduje's congress in February 2022. In the wake of the ruling in favour of Umar Ganduje's faction, analysts stated that the G-7 would either have to hope that the Supreme Court ruled in their favour (it ruled against them on 6 May), contest APC primaries under a hostile Ganduje-led Kano APC, or defect to other parties. The party crisis is notably dangerous as violence arose with a massive clash in July 2021 between supporters of Jibrin and Murtala Sule Garo, a commissioner close to Umar Ganduje, injuring dozens while Jibrin's campaign office was attacked and burnt down in December 2021. The intraparty violence then became deadly in March 2022 when four people were killed in clashes between supporters of Sule Garo and Kabiru Alhassan Rurum, another potential gubernatorial candidate.
Other than the factional crisis, fears of candidate imposition arose after state First Lady Hafsat Ganduje endorsed Sule Garo at an event in August 2021. Although the state government claimed she was recorded out of context, the video of the powerful first lady publicly backing a then-unannounced candidate nine months before the primary led to rumours that Governor Umar Ganduje himself was supporting Sule Garo as well. Sule Garo, who ransacked a collation centre in 2019 with Deputy Governor Nasir Yusuf Gawuna to force the election to inconclusiveness, is from Kano North like Umar Ganduje making his potential nomination angering for those supporting regional power rotation. However, by May 2022, reports emerged that Umar Ganduje would endorse Gawuna for governor with Sule Garo as his running mate. In reaction, House of Representatives member Kabiru Alhassan Rurum swiftly left the APC in protest of another non-southerner being poised to gain the party's nomination (Gawuna is from Kano Central). To stave off further outcry, the state APC stated that while Umar Ganduje and other major politicians had backed Gawuna, the party would hold an open and fair primary. Despite the statement, withdrawals continued as Jibrin opted to drop out and seek re-election to the Senate as A.A. Zaura also withdrew for a senatorial run. On the other hand, Sha'aban Ibrahim Sharada and Inuwa Ibrahim Waya vowed to continue their campaigns. Meanwhile, this occurred under the backdrop of more high-profile defections from the APC to the NNPP, largely (but not entirely) by politicians from Kano South who lamented their region's exclusion by the APC and by former G-7 supporters.
On the primary date, only Ibrahim Sharada contested against Gawuna in the indirect primary that ended with Gawuna emerging as the party nominee nearly unanimously. In his acceptance speech, Gawuna thanked the party leaders for their support and called for party members to unite. Ibrahim Sharada rejected the results and claimed that he narrowly escaped an assassination plot at the primary venue. He would go on to file a lawsuit against Gawuna in June, suing for the disqualification of Gawuna as a candidate. By August, Ibrahim Sharada joined ADP to gain its nomination.
Nominated Nasir Yusuf Gawuna: Deputy Governor (2018–present), Commissioner for Agriculture and Natural Resources (2014–2018; 2019–2022), and Nasarawa Local Government Chairman (2003–2011)
Eliminated in primary Sha'aban Ibrahim Sharada: House of Representatives member for Kano Municipal (2019–present) and former aide to President Muhammadu Buhari (defected after the primary to obtain the ADP nomination)
Withdrew Alhaji Usman Alhaji: Secretary to the State Government (2016–present) and former Commissioner for Education (1999–2003) Kabiru Alhassan Rurum: House of Representatives member for Rano/Bunkure/Kibiya (2019–present), former House of Assembly member for Rano (2011–2019), and former Speaker of the House of Assembly (2015–2017; 2018–2019) (defected prior to the primary to the NNPP to run for re-election as MHR for Rano/Bunkure/Kibiya) Bashir Ishaq Bashir: engineer (defected after the primary to the LP) Barau Jibrin: Senator for Kano North (2015–present), former Commissioner of Science and Technology, and former House of Representatives member for Tarauni (1999–2003)(to run for re-election as senator for Kano North) Murtala Sule Garo: former Commissioner for Local Government and Community Development (2015–2022) and former Kabo Local Government Chairman (2014–2015) Inuwa Ibrahim Waya: former Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation official Abdulkarim Abdulsalam Zaura: 2019 GPN gubernatorial nominee (to run for senator for Kano South)
Declined Umar Yakubu Danhassan: 2019 ADP gubernatorial nominee Kabiru Ibrahim Gaya: Senator for Kano South (2007–present) and former Governor (1992–1993) Salihu Sagir Takai: 2019 PRP gubernatorial nominee and PDP gubernatorial candidate, 2015 PDP gubernatorial nominee, 2011 ANPP gubernatorial nominee, former commissioner (2003–2010), and former Takai Local Government Chairman (1999–2002)
Results
New Nigeria Peoples Party