The Bellwether State What Ekiti State Can Tell Us About the 2023 Election

The manner in which Ekiti’s June 2022 governorship election unfolded could foreshadow Nigeria's 2023 presidential election.

Following a protracted legal battle that lasted 41 months, on October 15, 2010, an appeal court panel led by Justice Ayo Salami unanimously declared Dr. Kayode Fayemi as the governor of Ekiti State. Fayemi immediately replaced Segun Oni, who had been in office since May 29, 2007. An earlier decision of the Supreme Court in June 2007, which reinstated Peter Obi as governor of Anambra state, established that a governor’s four-year term begins the day he takes the oath of office. A combination of these two rulings, meant that Ekiti should not have held a governorship election during the 2011 general election cycle. It also meant that Ekiti had unknowingly joined a list of states where governors, having secured their mandate through the court process, were now to conduct off-cycle elections.

Inadvertently, this change in Ekiti’s election schedule has led to Ekiti’s being one of two governorship elections (the second being Osun State’s) held immediately before the general elections. Most recently, the Ekiti governorship election held last month reignited rivalries between familiar...