Borno governorship elections since 1999: voting through an insurgency

Borno, in Nigeria’s far north-east, is the only large state where the PDP has never won a governorship election. Since 1999 it has been governed by the All People’s Party (APP), its successor the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and, since 2013, the All Progressives Congress (APC). Its elections have also been held in harder conditions than anywhere else in the country: from 2009 the Boko Haram insurgency, which began in Maiduguri, killed tens of thousands of people and drove millions from their homes, and voting since 2015 has taken place partly in camps for displaced people.

1999 and 2003: Kachalla and Sheriff

Mala Kachalla, a former customs officer, won the January 1999 election for the APP with 388,058 votes against 348,800 for the PDP’s Baba Ahmad Jidda. Four years later he lost the ANPP ticket to Ali Modu Sheriff, a businessman and senator, and ran instead for the Alliance for Democracy. Sheriff won in April 2003 with 581,880 votes, making Kachalla one of the sitting governors to lose that year. Turnout was about 38% of 2.16 million registered voters.

Sheriff was re-elected in April 2007 with 688,763 votes against 307,764 for the PDP’s Kashim Ibrahim-Imam. His second term saw the July 2009 uprising in which security forces crushed Mohammed Yusuf’s Boko Haram sect in Maiduguri and Yusuf was killed in police custody, the start of the insurgency that followed. Critics later accused Sheriff of having courted the group before 2003; he has always denied it.

2011: a candidate killed, a commissioner elected

On 28 January 2011, gunmen shot dead the ANPP’s governorship candidate, Modu Fannami Gubio, in Maiduguri, along with several others including a brother of Governor Sheriff. The party replaced him with Kashim Shettima, a banker and state commissioner. In April Shettima won with 531,147 votes to 450,140 for the PDP’s Mohammed Goni, the closest Borno race of the period.

2015: an election under siege

Shettima governed through the worst years of the insurgency. By early 2015 Boko Haram held large parts of the state, and the general elections were postponed by six weeks while the military pushed it back. On 11 April 2015 Shettima, now in the APC, was re-elected with 649,913 votes, nearly 95% of the total, against 34,731 for the PDP’s Gambo Lawan. Many voters cast ballots in camps for displaced people in Maiduguri.

2019 and 2023: Zulum

Shettima’s chosen successor, Babagana Umara Zulum, a professor of agricultural engineering and former rector of Ramat Polytechnic, won the APC primary with 4,432 votes to his nearest rival’s 115. In March 2019 he took 1,175,440 votes, about 93% of the valid total, against 66,115 for the PDP’s Mohammad Imam. Shettima went to the Senate and in 2023 became Vice-President on Bola Tinubu’s ticket.

Zulum built a national profile for visiting front-line towns, resettling displaced communities and openly criticising the security services. He was re-elected on 18 March 2023 with 545,543 votes (86.1%) against 82,147 for the PDP’s Mohammed Ali Jajari, among the widest margins in the country.

The results at a glance

2027: after Zulum

Zulum cannot run again in 2027. INEC’s final list for the 6 February 2027 election names Gubio Alhaji Mustapha for the APC, Abba-Gana Ibrahim Baba for the PDP and Babagana Buhari for the ADC. The APC goes in as the clear favourite, but security, the return of displaced voters and turnout in the northern and southern senatorial districts will decide the margin.

Read more on elect.ng

• Governorship elections in all 36 states.
• Borno leaders since 1999.
• Incidents recorded in Borno elections.
• Election violence in Nigeria since 1999: a timeline.
• The 2015 presidential election.