The Most Competitive States for Presidential Elections in Nigeria

The 2015 Presidential Elections was the closest we have ever had since 1999, with President Buhari having a winning margin of just 9% in the total number of votes cast over President Jonathan. The previous elections had much larger winning margins — 1999 (25.5%), 2003 (29.8%) and 2011(26.9%).

In the run up to the 2019 Presidential Elections, we at Kingmakers decided to have a look at the trend of the winning margins across all the states in the country to find out which states tend to have close races when it comes to the Presidential Elections.

We did this by averaging the winning margins from the results of the 1999, 2003, 2011 and 2015 elections. The data from the 2007 was not included as that election is generally considered flawed by local and international observers.

The results showed that as expected, the South South and the South East had the least competitive states recording margins of over 80% in some cases while the most competitive states were in the North Central (Middle Zone) with Abuja FCT being the most competitive place in the country. The middle states have thus earned their title as swing states because of their competitiveness, the results can swing in any candidate’s favour.

It must also be noted that no Nigerian President has been elected without winning three states Benue, Kogi and Kwara, all who incidentally happen to be in the Middle Belt.

The data also went against the grain that Northerners generally tend to always solidly back their own candidates as the winning margins were slimmer than those observed in the southern part of the country. Kaduna(27%) and Gombe (28%) stood out in particular recording winning margins lower than any seen in the South East, South South and South West despite being seen as core Northern states.