Governor Charles Chukwuma Soludo of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) won a second term in the Anambra governorship election of Saturday 8 November 2025. The former Central Bank governor took 422,664 votes, about 72% of the valid total, and carried all 21 local government areas. It was the most lopsided result in the state since APGA first won it in 2003, and it kept Anambra as the only state the party governs.
The result
INEC’s returning officer, Professor Edoba Omoregie, vice-chancellor of the University of Benin, declared the result at the state collation centre in Awka on the morning of Sunday 9 November 2025.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Charles Soludo | APGA | 422,664 | 72.4% |
| Nicholas Ukachukwu | APC | 99,445 | 17.0% |
| Paul Chukwuma | YPP | 37,753 | 6.5% |
| George Moghalu | LP | 10,576 | 1.8% |
| Others (12 candidates) | about 13,600 |
Sixteen candidates were on the ballot. Of 2,788,864 registered voters, 595,298 cast ballots and 11,244 ballots were rejected, leaving 584,053 valid votes. Turnout of about 21% was in line with recent off-cycle elections in the state.
The returning officer said disruptions in Anambra West, Aniocha, Awka South and Onitsha South affected 10,481 votes, far fewer than the winning margin, so no supplementary election was needed.
How the campaign went
Soludo, first elected in 2021, ran on roads, security and the clean-up of Awka and Onitsha. The APC, which had never won the state, fielded businessman Nicholas Ukachukwu, and federal ministers campaigned heavily for him. The Labour Party, which had swept Anambra in the 2023 presidential and National Assembly elections on the back of Peter Obi’s candidacy, was weakened by its national leadership crisis and by Obi’s move into the ADC coalition; its candidate George Moghalu finished a distant fourth. The Young Progressives Party’s Paul Chukwuma, a former APC organising secretary, came third.
Security was the main worry before the vote. Separatist sit-at-home orders and attacks on INEC facilities had disrupted earlier elections in the South-East. The police and army deployed in large numbers, and polling day was mostly calm, though observer groups reported late openings and open vote buying in several areas.
The reaction
Ukachukwu and the APC accepted the outcome; the Labour Party and ADC candidates rejected it, alleging that vote buying and the heavy security presence had skewed the result. No petition changed the outcome. Soludo was sworn in for his second term on 17 March 2026.
Why it matters for 2027
The Anambra result was the first state-wide test after the 2025 realignment that saw the APC absorb governors and lawmakers across the country. It showed that a strong incumbent with a local party brand could still hold off the governing party, and that the Labour Party’s 2023 South-East surge had not survived its internal battles. Anambra will not vote for governor in 2027, but its 2.8 million voters will be courted in the presidential race.
