Nigerians choose a president on Saturday 16 January 2027. On 12 September 2026 the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) published its final list of 18 presidential candidates and their running mates, closing a nomination season that reshaped the party system. The ruling APC renominated President Bola Tinubu without a serious contest. The opposition, which had tried to unite behind one candidate in the African Democratic Congress (ADC), split three ways. Below are the candidates, in the order of their parties’ showing in recent elections.
Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Kashim Shettima (APC)
The president, 74, seeks a second term on the record of his first: the removal of the petrol subsidy, the floating of the naira, tax reform and the student-loan scheme, set against the cost-of-living crisis those policies deepened. The APC held a nationwide direct primary on 23 May 2026 in which Tinubu polled 10,999,162 votes against 16,503 for his only challenger, Edo businessman Stanley Osifo. Vice-President Kashim Shettima, a former Borno governor, remains his running mate, ending months of speculation about a change. The APC goes into the election controlling most of the 36 states after the 2025 wave of defections.
Atiku Abubakar and Rotimi Amaechi (ADC)
The former vice-president, 79, is making his seventh attempt at the presidency and his first outside the PDP since 2007. He led the opposition figures who adopted the ADC as their joint platform in 2025 under former Senate president David Mark. At the party’s primary on 27 May 2026 Atiku won 1,846,370 votes in a direct ballot, against 504,117 for former Rivers governor and transport minister Rotimi Amaechi and 177,120 for banker Mohammed Hayatu-Deen. Both losers rejected the result, but on 15 June the party named Amaechi as Atiku’s running mate, a North-East and South-South ticket. Atiku’s pitch is restructuring, privatisation and his experience in the Obasanjo government.
Peter Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso (NDC)
Peter Obi, 65, the former Anambra governor whose 2023 Labour Party campaign won 6.1 million votes and carried Lagos and the Federal Capital Territory, left the ADC coalition rather than defer to Atiku. On 30 May 2026 the National Democratic Congress, a party led by former Bayelsa governor Seriake Dickson, unveiled him as its sole presidential aspirant at a special convention in Abuja. The same day he named Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, the former Kano governor who polled 1.5 million votes as the NNPP’s candidate in 2023, as his running mate, promising an “equal partnership”. The ticket pairs Obi’s South-East and youth following with Kwankwaso’s Kano base, the combination many analysts said the opposition needed in 2023. Obi has repeated his promise to serve a single term.
Oluseyi Makinde and Musa Lawal Daura (APM)
The Oyo governor, 58, an engineer in his second term, is the PDP’s most successful remaining governor but could not get its ticket while the party fought over its leadership. On 30 May 2026 delegates of the Allied Peoples Movement adopted him as their candidate in Ibadan, and a convention in Bauchi in August formally presented him, with Bauchi governor Bala Mohammed as the party’s national leader. His running mate is Musa Lawal Daura. Makinde promises a one-term presidency and campaigns on the Oyo record of infrastructure and prompt salaries. The question his campaign faces is whether he can win votes outside the South-West.
Sandy Onor and Umar Babangida (PDP)
Nigeria’s governing party from 1999 to 2015 enters 2027 split in two. The faction recognised by INEC, aligned with FCT minister Nyesom Wike, adopted Sandy Ojang Onor, a professor of history who represented Cross River Central in the Senate from 2019 to 2023, as a consensus candidate in late May 2026, with Umar Babangida as running mate. A rival faction led by Kabiru Tanimu Turaki adopted former President Goodluck Jonathan and tried to submit his name to INEC in July, but the commission listed Onor. The courts had not changed that position when the final list was published.
Donald Duke and Kabiru Rabiu (PRP)
Donald Duke, 65, governor of Cross River from 1999 to 2007 and the builder of the Tinapa resort and the Calabar carnival, won the Peoples Redemption Party primary with 6,499 votes to 2,699 for Kingsley Yakubu. He ran for president in 2019 on the SDP platform. His running mate is Kabiru Rabiu. The PRP, the party of the late Aminu Kano, says it will field more than 400 candidates across the country.
The other 12 candidates
| Candidate | Party |
|---|---|
| Omoyele Sowore | African Action Congress (AAC) |
| Adewole Adebayo | Social Democratic Party (SDP) |
| Sunday Okereke | Labour Party (LP) |
| Omo-Aje | Action Alliance (AA) |
| Abbas-Bin Aliyu | Action Democratic Party (ADP) |
| Kabiru Yusuf | Action Peoples Party (APP) |
| Sunday Adenuga | Boot Party (BP) |
| Moses Adebisi | Democratic Liberation Alliance (DLA) |
| Ada Okwori | National Democratic Party (NDP) |
| Nkem Esther Okereke | National Rescue Movement (NRM) |
| Peter Agada | Young Progressives Party (YPP) |
| Daniel Nwanyanwu | Zenith Labour Party (ZLP) |
Sowore, the publisher of Sahara Reporters, and Adebayo, a lawyer, are both running for the second time. The Labour Party, which came third in 2023 with Peter Obi, fields a little-known candidate after Obi’s departure and its long leadership dispute.
What to watch
- The 25% rule. A winner needs the most votes and at least a quarter of the vote in two-thirds of the states and the FCT. With four serious candidates, a run-off, never held in Nigeria, is possible. How a candidate wins the presidency.
- The opposition split. Atiku, Obi and Makinde are competing for many of the same voters. Talks about one of them stepping down continued into the campaign.
- Turnout. Only 27% of registered voters turned out in 2023. The new Electoral Act, the earlier date and the state of the economy will all shape who shows up.
