2023 Rivers State gubernatorial election

The 2023 Rivers State gubernatorial election will take place on 18 March 2023, to elect the Governor of Rivers State, concurrent with elections to the Rivers 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—will be held three weeks after the presidential election and National Assembly elections. Incumbent PDP Governor Ezenwo Nyesom Wike is term-limited and cannot seek re-election to a third term.
Party primaries were scheduled for between 4 April and 9 June 2022 with the Peoples Democratic Party nominating former state Accountant-General Siminalayi Fubara on 25 May while the All Progressives Congress nominated businessman Tonye Cole on 26 May. On 25 October, a Federal High Court ruling nullified all Rivers APC primaries but the ruling was overturned by the Court of Appeal in January 2023.
Electoral system.
The Governor of Rivers 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.
Rivers State is a highly populated, diverse state in the South South with major oil and natural gas reserves along with industrial centres. Despite its vast oil revenues, the state has several major issues with pirates and illegal oil bunkering gangs in riverine areas while urban areas have overcrowding and intense environmental pollution.
Politically, the 2019 elections were a continuation of the state PDP's control as the state APC's inability to hold valid primaries led to its disqualification by a court. PDP presidential nominee Atiku Abubakar won the state by 50% and the party gained all three senate seats while also sweeping the House of Representatives elections. On the state level, the PDP also retained its House of Assembly majority and Wike won the gubernatorial election by a wide margin.
Ahead of Wike's term, the aims for his second term were infrastructure, fiscal discipline, economic development, and unity. In terms of his performance, Wike was commended for infrastructural development, healthcare improvements, investments in sport, and pushing against illegal oil bunkering. However, his administration was criticized for its months-long delay in forming a cabinet, his unconstitutional declaration of Rivers as a "Christian state" and poor response to the demolition of a mosque, spending billions of naira to purchase luxury cars for lawmakers and judges, attempting to illegally ban protests during the height of the 2020 End SARS demonstrations, his perceived obsession with starting public disputes with other elected officials, the irregular payment of government salaries and pensions, and disrespecting traditional rulers. Wike also came over fire for his autocratic moves to crackdown on opposition by banning protests multiple times and most notably, when he had intraparty rival and House of Representatives member Farah Dagogo arrested and jailed for weeks to prevent him from running for governor. Another key source of controversy was his handling of the Oyigbo killings in November 2020, when Army personnel went on rampage attacks against Igbo young men in Oyigbo after five soldiers were killed by IPOB; Wike repeatedly denied any Army wrongdoing and justified the week-long military occupation of the area.
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. Leaders in ethnic groups like the Ogoni called on parties to nominate a non-Ikwerre as Ikwerres have held the governorship since 2007. Furthermore, despite making up a significant percentage of Rivers' population, no Ogoni person has ever held the governorship or deputy governorship, leading to calls for the formal zoning of party nominations to the Ogoni-majority Rivers South East Senatorial District. These calls, coupled with other claims that the governorship ought to rotate between upland and riverine areas, have led to pressure on parties to nominate someone from riverine areas or more specifically, Ogoni-majority areas. However, no major party has yet closed their primaries to candidates from the other districts. While neither major party formally zoned their nominations, both the APC and PDP nominated politicians from riverine areas.
All Progressives Congress.
The long-running dispute between former Governor and federal Minister of Transportation Rotimi Amaechi and former Senator Magnus Abe which led to the Rivers APC's disqualification in 2019 continued ahead of the primary as their factions held separate party congresses and elected different leadership in 2021; national APC leadership later accepted the results of the Amaechi-supported congress as legitimate. As an extension of the party crisis, there were disputes in the Rivers APC over the prospect of zoning the gubernatorial nomination as Amaechi was in favor of zoning to the South East while Abe fought against making a formal zoning decision. By April 2022, it was clear that the party rift had not been bridged as Amaechi and his allies met to select a "consensus party nominee," settling on Tonye Cole who would have been the APC nominee in 2019 if the party was not disqualified. While some aspirants agreed to the arrangement and dropped out, Abe and his allies made it clear that they did not recognize Cole as the party's choice with an Abe-aligned politician deriding Cole as simply "a business associate of" Amaechi. There were also protests from others within the party that decried the opaque process and the choice of Cole as he has never held elected office and supposedly lacks political structures in the state. Despite the objections, the party confirmed Cole as its consensus pick; although the press release noted that since the meeting was not a formal party process, Cole was not formally the party nominee. However, the party backing of Cole did not resolve the controversy as more candidates questioned the pick and its process.
In the days before the primary, the party crisis deepened as Abe's camp rejected the ad hoc delegate congresses and protested at the state party secretariat. On the primary date, Abe boycotted and preemptively rejected the primary’s proceedings before the indirect primary held and resulted in Cole emerging as the APC nominee after results showed Cole winning over 77% of the delegates' votes. In his acceptance speech, Cole thanked delegates and Amaechi before asking Abe and others to unite the party. He would go onto select former MHA Innocent Barikor—an ethnic Ogoni from Gokana—as his running mate. Despite the unifacation plea, Abe and two other former primary aspirants left the party in July. Abe would go on to obtain the SDP gubernatorial nomination. However, a lawsuit from Abe-supporting delegates who alleged that they were refused the ability to vote in primaries led to the annulment of the APC primary by a Federal High Court on 25 October. The Rivers APC protested the ruling, claiming that the court had no jurisdiction over an internal party matter. The Court of Appeal sided with the APC in January 2023, reinstating Cole as the nominee.
People's Democratic Party.
Unlike the state APC, the Rivers PDP did not face much internal strife directly ahead of the party primary as Wike held direct control over much of the party. However, as the primary neared, struggles over the primary method and Wike's leadership style began to be unveiled from reports culminating in a large protest at the Rivers PDP secretariat on 13 April 2022. A backer of the protest and intraparty Wike opponent, House of Representatives member Farah Dagogo was running for Governor until Wike accused Dagogo of sponsoring thugs to attack the party secretariat on 27 April and ordered the police to arrest him the day before PDP gubernatorial screening. Dagogo, who had already bought and submitted forms to run in the primary, attempted to attend the mandatory party screening exercise on 28 April but was detained by police and held in jail indefinitely. Dagogo's aides along with civil society groups decried the arrest as politically motivated and called for Dagogo's release but the PDP simply disqualified him from the primary due to 'non-attendance at screening.'
In the days directly before the primary, reports emerged that Wike had settled on Siminalayi Fubara—the immediate past Accountant General of Rivers State—as his preferred candidate despite the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission declaring Fubara wanted for fraud on 24 May. On the primary date, the candidates contested an indirect primary that ended with Fubara's nomination after results showed him winning over 81% of the delegates' votes; several other candidates did not attend the event. In his acceptance speech, Fubara vowed to continue the work of the Wike administration. After the primary, it was noted that Fubara's riverine origin and Ijaw ethnicity were a move in favor of a power shift after Wike's governorship. However, Fubara still faced opposition from the EFCC as agents attempted to arrest him on 8 June and were stopped by Fubara's armed thugs. Despite his status as a fugitive, Fubara commenced his campaign and selected Ngozi Odu—a former commissioner from Ogba–Egbema–Ndoni—as his running mate later in June.
Campaign.
Immediately after the primaries, analysts categorized the election as a proxy battle between outgoing governor Ezenwo Nyesom Wike (PDP) and former governor Rotimi Amaechi (APC) despite being the first Rivers State gubernatorial election since 2003 in which neither Wike nor Amaechi are candidates. Fubara and Cole are both extensively connected to Wike and Amaechi, respectively, leading to the labeling of the general election as a continuation of the power struggle between the two. However, the emergence of Magnus Abe—a former Senator who spent years feuding with Amaechi over control of the state APC—as the SDP nominee added even more uncertainty to the election. More important factors included Fubara's ongoing corruption case and Wike's feud with the national PDP over the aftermath of the presidential primary, which he lost in May 2022.
However, the race was massively shifted by a High Court ruling in October 2022 which annulled all Rivers APC primaries. The ruling was quickly compared to a similar ruling that disqualified the Rivers APC in 2019; the party protested the judgement and vowed to contest the elections. The next month, on 7 November, the first public poll—conducted by NIO Polls and commissioned by the Anap Foundation—was released for the race with it showing a heavily fragmented field that Fubara led while Cole (who was included despite the court ruling) and Abe trailed in second and third, respectively. As the election neared, Cole was reinstated as nominee by a Court of Appeal ruling in January 2023. The next month, a debate was conducted by the Rivers State Governorship Debate Group on 19 February; Abe, Cole, and LP nominee Beatrice Itubo attended while Fubara and Accord nominee Dumo Lulu-Briggs were absent.
Later in February, focus switched to the nearing presidential election on 25 February. In the election, Rivers State voted for Bola Tinubu (APC) amid controversy; declared results showed Tinubu winning the state with 44.2% of the vote to defeat Peter Obi (LP) at 33.4% and Atiku Abubakar (PDP) at 16.9%. The election, riddled with irregularities and fraud accusations, led to renewed focus on the gubernatorial race as reports of Wike-directed electoral interference in favour of Tinubu led to concerns about similar efforts for Fubara. Analysts noted the high likelihood of voter apathy due to a sense that actual votes do not impact the announced results in wake of the widespread rigging reports from February along with fear of violence that had been targeted at opposition strongholds. Other factors considered by pundits included the tense political atmosphere, bigotry against non-indigenes, and continuous attacks on opposition figures.
General election.
Results.
By senatorial district.
The results of the election by senatorial district.
By federal constituency.
The results of the election by federal constituency.
By local government area.
The results of the election by local government area.