Voters in Ekiti State will get the chance to elect a new governor on Saturday, June 18th 2022. We put together the most important things to know about this election.
Why’s it taking place before 2023?
The Ekiti State governorship election is one of a handful of governorship elections in Nigeria that doesn’t happen at the same time as the general elections. Ekiti’s election timeline was disrupted when a Court of Appeal nullified the result of the 2007 election in 2010, thereby resetting the clock for every subsequent Ekiti State governor’s four-year term.
Is there an incumbent governor involved?
No. The current governor of Ekiti State, Kayode Fayemi, is serving his second term in office, so there’s no incumbent involved in the upcoming election.
But a former governor is involved
Segun Oni was Ekiti State governor between 2007 and 2010 when the Court of Appeal overturned his victory for Fayemi’s first term in office.
Oni is running for a second term in office as the candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP). He also contested for the position in 2018 but failed to win the ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
How many candidates are contesting?
A total of 16 candidates will participate in the election. 14 of them are male and two are female. There are also nine male deputy governorship candidates and seven female deputy governorship candidates.
When will the winner be sworn in?
The winner of the election will be sworn in on October 15th 2022.
Bonus fun fact
No sitting governor in Ekiti State has ever won re-election immediately. Only Ayodele Fayose and Fayemi have served two terms in office, but they were first defeated in their first attempts and had to leave the office to retry later.
Fayose was impeached during his first term between 2003 and 2006, and won a second term in 2014. Fayemi was contesting for a second term in 2014, after becoming governor in 2010, but lost to Fayose in 2014 before he returned to win back the office in 2018.
Oni would hope to join this exclusive club of returnee two-term governors.
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