The Speaker of the Kwara State House of Assembly, Salihu Yakubu Danladi, has emerged winner of the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship primary in Kwara State, in a process that was marred by confusion, tension and accusations of internal power play within the ruling party.
Danladi, from Kwara North, polled 94,990 votes to defeat 14 other aspirants, including a serving senator, in the exercise held across the 16 local government areas of the state.
The result was announced on Friday, May 22, at the Banquet Hall in Ilorin by the Chairman of the APC Governorship Primary Election Committee, Musiliu Obanikoro, who declared the Speaker duly elected after what he described as a peaceful exercise.
“There is no loser in any contest in APC. We are all winners,” Obanikoro said while announcing the final result.
He added that Danladi satisfied all requirements to emerge as the party’s candidate for the 2027 governorship election.
However, the primary was preceded by a storm of controversy after the exercise was abruptly postponed on Thursday, May 21, 2026, despite earlier voting arrangements and mobilisation in several wards across the state.
The postponement came amid reports of unrest at the APC secretariat in Ilorin, where suspected political thugs were said to have stormed the premises during the build-up to the exercise, forcing the deployment of security operatives, including the police and the State Security Service (SSS) to restore order.
The party later shifted the exercise to Friday, May 22, 2026.
The crisis was rooted in deepening internal divisions within the Kwara APC over the screening of aspirants for the 2027 polls, which initially saw more than 100 aspirants disqualified before the party reversed itself and cleared all 159 contenders, including Danladi.
The situation was further complicated by political alignments ahead of the primary, particularly reports of aspirants who stepped down in favour of Yahaya Seriki, who had earlier been endorsed as preferred successor by Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq.
The governor’s endorsement of Seriki, days before the exercise, had stirred controversy within the party, with concerns raised over zoning as stakeholders from Kwara North and Kwara South insisting power should move from Kwara Central after AbdulRazaq’s tenure.
Mustapha Usman is an investigative journalist with the International Centre for Investigative Reporting. You can easily reach him via: musman@icirnigeria.com. He tweets @UsmanMustapha_M