HOW WILL EKITI GOVERNORSHIP ELECTION PAN OUT?
Nick Dazang
On Saturday, 20th June 2026, 1,059,360 registered voters will cast their votes across 2,445 polling units in the Ekiti Off-Cycle Governorship Election.
This election, which is being contested by fourteen(14) political parties, will be the seventh since the advent of the Fourth Republic in 1999. It will also be the fourth off-cycle governorship election in Ekiti State. Previous ones were conducted in 2014, 2018, and 2022.
Since the commencement of court-ordered off-cycle governorship elections, that of Ekiti has been the second to the last in the series before the conduct of a General Election. The Osun off-cycle Governorship Election, which is to be conducted on Saturday, 15th August 2026, will bring the rear before the conduct of the 2027 General Election.
Interestingly, in this year’s election, 542,412 registered voters, representing 51.20%, are of the female gender while 516,948 registered voters, representing 48.80%, are of the male gender.
Ekiti State, which boasts of the highest number of professors in Nigeria, has a landmass of 6,353 square kilometers. It is bordered by Kwara, Kogi, Ondo and Osun States. Unlike most of the States in Southern Nigeria, Ekiti does not have riverine or very challenging terrains.
Besides, the conduct of off-cycle governorship elections in Ekiti State, since 2014, have been relatively peaceful.
An Election Pre-Assessment Report recently issued by the European Union Support to Democratic Governance in Nigeria(EU-SDGN) suggests the prospect of a peaceful election on Saturday, 20th June 2026. Said the EU-SDGN report:”There is a high possibility that the election will be peaceful based on the generally calm and positive situational outlook prevailing in the State. Most of the pre-election activities have so far been carried out without any serious security threat.”
Coming shortly after the conduct of the Anambra Off-Cycle Governorship Election and the FCT Chairmanship and Area Council Elections, the Ekiti Off-Cycle Governorship Election offers the INEC Chairman, Professor Joash Amupitan, yet another propitious opportunity to learn lessons and to hone his skills ahead of the 2027 General Election.
The Ekiti governorship election is hugely significant because it will be the first major one in which the Electoral Act 2026 will be tested and implemented. Stakeholders will thus be keen to see how the Commission will implement Clauses 33, 60, 62, 63, and 84 enshrined in the Act. The clauses deal chiefly with political parties changing candidates, the counting of votes and forms, post-election procedures, collation of election results, rejection of ballot paper which does not bear official mark/stamp, and nomination of candidates by political parties.
Stakeholders will also watch with eagle eyes how the Commission intends to navigate the extant provision of the Electoral Act 2026 as it concerns the transmission of results.
Additionally, Nigerians will be looking out to how the Commission will surmount the challenges of logistics and vote trading. Though the FCT was thought to be small in terms of landmass, its elections were still hamstrung by logistics in some of its jurisdictions.
Vote trading has framed and marred the conduct of off-cycle governorship elections in Ekiti State since 2018. The prevailing economic difficulties, in which not less than 63% of Nigerians are living in abject poverty, are likely going to fray and put to severe test the guardrails against vote trading put in place by INEC and the anti-corruption agencies during the election.
In 2014, voter turn out in the Ekiti Off-Cycle Governorship Election was a healthy 50.32%. During the conduct of the 2018 election, it had dropped to 44.36%. And by 2022, it had plunged to 36.5%. Will we see an upward spiral or a further plummet?
If the odds favor a peaceful election, as is being championed by the bookmakers, and if the Commission and other stakeholders such as the media and civil society had sustained a publicity blitz on the conduct of the election, this offensive has since been blunted by the controversial primaries undertaken by nearly all the political parties, outrage on INEC’s data leak and the uproar over the swath of abductions that have afflicted the country in recent weeks.
The shambolic primaries, data leak and the uproar over these abductions have crowded out the conduct of the Ekiti election from the news space and the upper reaches of national discussion. This is likely to impact the election negatively by driving it to the margins.
In view of the fact that abduction/kidnapping has strayed into Ekiti’s neighborhood, concerns are likely to be raised about safety on Election Day.
This will in turn affect voter turn out. This unfortunate state of affairs calls for the security agencies to continue to assure voters of their safety as Election Day approaches. Measures should also be taken to monitor the movement of people at towns bordering the State.
Also, INEC needs to upscale voter education and publicity as they concern the election in the coming day. The political parties should complement the Commission by mobilizing voters to turn out in their numbers to exercise their franchise on Election Day and to do so in a peaceful manner.
Whichever way the election goes, it will give INEC a splendid opportunity to learn lessons and to factor them in subsequent elections. It will also give us useful insights into how the 2027 General Elections will be conducted.
