Lagos is Nigeria’s commercial capital, its most populous voting state and the political base of President Bola Tinubu. Since the return to civil rule in 1999 the state has had four governors, all from the same political family: the Alliance for Democracy (AD), then the Action Congress (AC/ACN), and since 2013 the All Progressives Congress (APC). No opposition party has won the state. But the size of the opposition vote has swung a long way, from a few hundred thousand in 2011 to more than 650,000 in 2015 and a Labour Party surge in 2023.
1999: Tinubu and the Alliance for Democracy
The AD swept the South-West in the January 1999 elections, and Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a former senator who had been in exile during the Abacha years, won Lagos with 841,732 votes. His nearest challenger, the PDP’s Dapo Sarumi, polled 184,900. Tinubu’s eight years laid down the structure that still runs Lagos politics: a strong state revenue base, a network of local government loyalists and a tradition of the outgoing governor choosing the next candidate.
2003: surviving the PDP wave
In April 2003 the PDP took every other South-West state from the AD. Lagos was the exception. Tinubu beat the PDP’s Funsho Williams, an engineer and former works commissioner, to win a second term. The campaign was bitter and the margin far narrower than in 1999; the PDP’s 2003 showing stood as its best in Lagos until 2015. Williams was murdered in his home in July 2006 while seeking the PDP ticket again, a case that was never solved.
2007 and 2011: the Fashola years
Tinubu’s chief of staff, Babatunde Raji Fashola, a lawyer, took the Action Congress ticket in 2007 and won with 599,300 votes (about 51%) against 383,956 for the PDP’s Musiliu Obanikoro. Jimi Agbaje, running for the Democratic Peoples Alliance, came third.
Fashola’s first term, remembered for the BRT bus lanes, the clean-up of Oshodi and a visible rise in public order, made him popular well beyond his party. In April 2011 he was re-elected in a landslide: 1,509,113 votes, roughly 81%, against 300,450 for the PDP’s Adegboyega Dosunmu. It remains the largest vote ever recorded for a Lagos governor.
2015: the closest race
Fashola’s successor was Akinwunmi Ambode, a career accountant who had served as the state’s accountant-general. He faced Jimi Agbaje, now the PDP candidate, in the most competitive Lagos election since 1999. INEC declared Ambode the winner on 12 April 2015 with 811,994 votes to Agbaje’s 659,788, a margin of 152,206. Agbaje telephoned Ambode to concede.
Ambode’s term ended early in political terms. In October 2018 the APC’s Governance Advisory Council, the body of party elders led by Tinubu, backed Babajide Sanwo-Olu against him in the primary, and Ambode lost the ticket. He is the only Lagos governor since 1999 denied a second term by his own party.
2019: Sanwo-Olu arrives
Babajide Sanwo-Olu, a former commissioner and head of the Lagos State Property Development Corporation, won the March 2019 election with 739,445 votes (about 76%) against 206,141 for Agbaje, who was running for the third time. Fewer than one in five of the state’s 6.5 million registered voters took part.
2023: the Labour Party challenge
The 2023 election, held on 18 March, was the most intense in a generation. Three weeks earlier Peter Obi of the Labour Party had beaten Tinubu in the presidential vote in Lagos, and the Labour governorship candidate, architect Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, hoped to repeat it. Election day was marred by reports of voter intimidation and ethnic profiling in parts of the state, which observers and the Labour Party condemned.
INEC’s returning officer, Professor Nike Oladiji, declared Sanwo-Olu re-elected in the early hours of 20 March with 762,134 votes. Rhodes-Vivour polled 312,329 and the PDP’s Abdul-Azeez Adediran (Jandor) 62,449. Sanwo-Olu won 19 of the 20 local government areas; Labour won Amuwo-Odofin. Out of 7.06 million registered voters, only about 1.18 million were accredited, a turnout under 17%. Rhodes-Vivour rejected the result and went to the tribunal, which upheld Sanwo-Olu’s victory.
| Year | Winner (party) | Votes | Runner-up (party) | Votes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | Bola Tinubu (AD) | 841,732 | Dapo Sarumi (PDP) | 184,900 |
| 2003 | Bola Tinubu (AD) | – | Funsho Williams (PDP) | – |
| 2007 | Babatunde Fashola (AC) | 599,300 | Musiliu Obanikoro (PDP) | 383,956 |
| 2011 | Babatunde Fashola (ACN) | 1,509,113 | Adegboyega Dosunmu (PDP) | 300,450 |
| 2015 | Akinwunmi Ambode (APC) | 811,994 | Jimi Agbaje (PDP) | 659,788 |
| 2019 | Babajide Sanwo-Olu (APC) | 739,445 | Jimi Agbaje (PDP) | 206,141 |
| 2023 | Babajide Sanwo-Olu (APC) | 762,134 | Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour (LP) | 312,329 |
Full candidate-by-candidate figures for 2003 were not published in a form we can verify. If you have the official INEC return, send a correction from the article page.
2027: Hamzat steps up
Sanwo-Olu cannot run again. On 21 May 2026 the APC chose his deputy, Obafemi Hamzat, as its governorship candidate; he polled 657,917 votes in a direct primary against a single token challenger, after endorsements from President Tinubu, Governor Sanwo-Olu and the Governance Advisory Council. He is the first Lagos deputy governor to secure the ticket. The governorship election holds on 6 February 2027.
