For a quarter of a century Taraba was one of the PDP’s safest states. The party won every governorship election from 1999 to 2023, including in 2015, when the APC took most of the North. The state’s politics were turbulent all the same: its second governor was incapacitated in a plane crash for most of his second term, an election tribunal briefly handed the governorship to the APC, and its first governor went to prison. In January 2026 Governor Agbu Kefas took the state into the APC.
1999 and 2003: Jolly Nyame
Jolly Nyame, a clergyman who had first been elected governor of Taraba in 1992, during the short-lived Third Republic, won the January 1999 election for the PDP with 467,025 votes against 343,898 for the All People’s Party. He was re-elected in April 2003 with 784,013 votes to 102,879 for the ANPP’s Abubakar Saad. In May 2018 a High Court in Abuja convicted Nyame of misappropriating about ₦1.64 billion of state funds while in office and sentenced him to 14 years, later reduced to 12 on appeal. He was released after a presidential pardon in 2022.
2007 and 2011: Suntai and the crash
Danbaba Suntai, a pharmacist, won in April 2007 with 515,016 votes against 119,720 for Ahmed Yusuf of the Action Congress, and again in April 2011 with 361,176 to Yusuf’s 176,342, this time on the CPC ticket.
On 25 October 2012 a small plane Suntai was piloting crashed near Yola. He survived with serious injuries and spent months abroad for treatment. His return in August 2013 set off a long dispute over whether he was fit to govern, while his deputy, Garba Umar, ran the state as acting governor. In November 2014 the Supreme Court ruled that Sani Abubakar Danladi, the deputy governor impeached by the House of Assembly shortly before the crash, had been wrongly removed; Danladi was restored and served as acting governor until May 2015. Suntai died in June 2017.
2015: “Mama Taraba” and the courts
The 2015 race pitted the PDP’s Darius Dickson Ishaku, a former minister of state, against the APC’s Aisha Jummai Alhassan, a former senator popularly called “Mama Taraba”, who was bidding to become Nigeria’s first elected female governor. The first round was inconclusive; after supplementary voting on 25 April, INEC declared Ishaku the winner with 369,318 votes to Alhassan’s 275,984.
In November 2015 the election tribunal ruled that Ishaku had not been validly nominated by his party and declared Alhassan the winner, and violence broke out in parts of the state. The Court of Appeal reversed the tribunal, and on 11 February 2016 the Supreme Court upheld Ishaku’s election, holding that a party’s nomination of its candidate is an internal matter.
2019: Ishaku’s second term
Ishaku was re-elected in March 2019 with 520,433 votes (57.2%), winning 12 of the 16 local governments, against 362,735 for the APC’s Sani Abubakar Danladi, the former acting governor.
2023: Kefas holds the state
The PDP chose Agbu Kefas, a retired Air Vice Marshal, to succeed Ishaku. The APC nominee, Senator Emmanuel Bwacha, spent most of the campaign in court: the Supreme Court annulled his nomination in January 2023 and he won a rerun primary weeks before the vote. On 18 March 2023 Kefas won with 257,926 votes. The NNPP’s Muhammad Sani Yahaya came second with 202,278 and Bwacha third with 141,592.
The results at a glance
| Year | Winner (party) | Votes | Runner-up (party) | Votes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | Jolly Nyame (PDP) | 467,025 | APP candidate | 343,898 |
| 2003 | Jolly Nyame (PDP) | 784,013 | Abubakar Saad (ANPP) | 102,879 |
| 2007 | Danbaba Suntai (PDP) | 515,016 | Ahmed Yusuf (AC) | 119,720 |
| 2011 | Danbaba Suntai (PDP) | 361,176 | Ahmed Yusuf (CPC) | 176,342 |
| 2015 | Darius Ishaku (PDP) | 369,318 | Aisha Alhassan (APC) | 275,984 |
| 2019 | Darius Ishaku (PDP) | 520,433 | Sani Abubakar Danladi (APC) | 362,735 |
| 2023 | Agbu Kefas (PDP) | 257,926 | Muhammad Sani Yahaya (NNPP) | 202,278 |
2027: the parties swap places
Kefas was formally received into the APC at the end of January 2026, joining the wave of governors leaving the PDP. He is the APC’s candidate for the 6 February 2027 election. In a reversal of 2023, his main opponent is Emmanuel Bwacha, now the PDP candidate. INEC’s final list also names Abubakar Umar Tutare for the ADC and Uba Sani Abdullahi for the NNPP.
