Rivers governorship elections since 1999: big numbers, bigger quarrels

Rivers State sits on much of Nigeria’s oil and gas, collects one of the largest state budgets in the federation and has long been the political prize of the South-South. Its governorship elections have been marked by very large declared vote totals, violence, and disputes that reach far beyond the state. The PDP held the governorship from 1999 until the current governor’s defection in 2025.

1999 and 2003: the Odili years

Peter Odili, a medical doctor and former deputy governor, won the January 1999 election for the PDP with 770,074 votes against 710,280 for the All People’s Party candidate, a genuinely close contest. Four years later the picture was very different. INEC credited Odili with about 2.1 million votes in April 2003 against the ANPP’s Sergeant Awuse. Human Rights Watch and other observers documented armed gangs, ballot stuffing and intimidation across the Niger Delta that year, and Rivers was among the worst affected states. Incidents from the 2003 elections.

2007: a governor the voters never saw on the ballot

Odili’s chosen successor, speaker Rotimi Amaechi, won the PDP primary in late 2006. The party then replaced him with his cousin Celestine Omehia, citing an indictment Amaechi disputed. Omehia was declared winner of the April 2007 election with 1,853,127 votes, almost 95% of the total.

Amaechi had gone to court before the election. On 25 October 2007 the Supreme Court ruled that his substitution was unlawful and that, because Nigerian law treats the party rather than the person as the winner of an election, the votes cast for the PDP belonged to its lawful candidate. Amaechi was sworn in the next day, five months into a term for which he had never campaigned. The judgment remains one of the most debated in Nigerian election law and led to tighter rules on candidate substitution. Court cases that changed Nigerian elections.

2011: Amaechi’s own mandate

Amaechi won a term in his own right in April 2011 with 1,178,529 votes against 112,528 for Omehia, who had moved to APGA. Two years later he led the “new PDP” rebellion against President Goodluck Jonathan and became one of the five governors who defected to the APC in November 2013, which put the ruling party in opposition in Rivers.

2015: Wike takes over

The 2015 election was the most violent in the state since 2003. Amaechi backed Dakuku Peterside of the APC. Jonathan’s camp backed Nyesom Wike, Amaechi’s former chief of staff and a federal minister. INEC declared Wike the winner on 13 April 2015 with 1,029,102 votes (about 88%) to Peterside’s 124,896. The APC called the result “a rape of democracy”, and the tribunal and Court of Appeal nullified the election before the Supreme Court restored Wike’s victory in January 2016.

2019: the election with no APC candidate

Court battles over the APC’s primaries meant the party had no candidates on the Rivers ballot in 2019. Amaechi’s faction backed Biokpomabo Awara of the little-known African Action Congress. Voting on 9 March was suspended after soldiers and armed men disrupted collation; INEC completed the exercise weeks later and on 3 April declared Wike re-elected with 886,264 votes to Awara’s 173,859.

2023: Fubara, and the quarrel that followed

Wike was term-limited and picked his accountant-general, Siminalayi Fubara, as PDP candidate while openly campaigning for the APC’s presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu. Fubara won on 18 March 2023 with 302,614 votes (about 63%) against 95,274 for the APC’s Tonye Cole. Turnout was far below 2015 and 2019 levels.

Within months Fubara and Wike, by then Tinubu’s minister for the Federal Capital Territory, were at war over control of the state’s political structure. In October 2023 part of the Assembly complex was set on fire and 27 lawmakers loyal to Wike moved to impeach the governor; they later defected to the APC. Budgets, local council elections and the running of the state became hostage to the dispute.

2025: emergency rule

On 18 March 2025 President Tinubu declared a state of emergency in Rivers, suspended Fubara, his deputy and the entire House of Assembly for six months and appointed a retired naval chief, Vice-Admiral Ibok-Ete Ibas, as sole administrator. The president said the governor faced 27 hostile lawmakers with only four on his side and that pipeline vandalism and the breakdown of governance left him no choice. Opposition parties, the Nigerian Bar Association and many lawyers called the move unconstitutional. The emergency ended on 18 September 2025, when Fubara, his deputy and the lawmakers were told to return to their offices.

Towards 2027

Fubara joined the APC in December 2025, and the party’s national leadership said it would back him for a second term. Wike’s allies, who control the Assembly and the APC structure in the state, objected. On 20 May 2026 Fubara withdrew from the APC governorship primary, saying he was stepping aside “in the interest of peace, stability and unity” in the state. Two days later the APC declared Kingsley Chinda, a member of the House of Representatives and an ally of Wike, its governorship candidate. INEC’s final list for the 6 February 2027 election, published in October 2026, also names Ejekwu Samuel Soni for the PDP and Pidomson Gabriel Baritulem for the ADC (names as INEC lists them). Whether Fubara’s supporters rally behind another party will shape a fiercely contested race.

* Replaced by Rotimi Amaechi by order of the Supreme Court on 25 October 2007.

Read more on elect.ng

• Governorship elections in all 36 states.
• Rivers leaders since 1999.
• Incidents recorded in Rivers elections.
• Election violence in Nigeria since 1999: a timeline.