The 2023 Cross River State gubernatorial election took place on 18 March 2023, to elect the Governor of Cross River State, concurrent with elections to the Cross River State House of Assembly as well as twenty-seven other gubernatorial elections and elections to all other state houses of assembly.^[2][3] The election—which was postponed from its original 11 March date—will be held three weeks after the presidential election and National Assembly elections.^[4] Incumbent APC Governor Benedict Ayade was term-limited and could not seek re-election to a third term.

Quick Facts Registered, Nominee ...

2023 Cross River State gubernatorial election

← 2019 18 March 2023 2027 →
Registered	1,766,466
PDP Nominee Bassey Otu Sandy Ojang Onor Party APC PDP Running mate Peter Odey Emana Ambrose-Amawhe Popular vote 258,619[1] 179,636[1]
LGA results Otu:      40–50%      50–60%      60–70%      70–80%      80–90% Onor:      40–50%      50–60%
Governor before election Benedict Ayade APC Elected Governor Bassey Otu APC

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Party primaries were scheduled for between 4 April and 9 June 2022 with the Peoples Democratic Party nominating Senator for Cross River Central Sandy Ojang Onor on 25 May while the All Progressives Congress nominated former Senator for Cross River South Bassey Otu on 26 May.^[5][6]

The governor of Cross River State is elected using a modified two-round system. To be elected in the first round, a candidate must receive the plurality of the vote and over 25% of the vote in at least two-thirds of state local government areas. If no candidate passes this threshold, a second round will be held between the top candidate and the next candidate to have received a plurality of votes in the highest number of local government areas.

Cross River State is a diverse state in the South South with growing economy and vast natural areas but facing an underdeveloped yet vital agricultural sector, deforestation, and rising debt in large part due to years of systemic corruption.

Politically, the state's 2019 elections were categorized as a continuation of the PDP's control as Ayade won with over 73% of the vote and the party won every seat in the House of Assembly along with all three senate seats. However, the PDP did lose one House of Representatives seat to the APC and although the state was easily won by PDP presidential nominee Atiku Abubakar, it still swung towards Buhari compared to 2015 and had lower turnout. In the interim between 2019 and 2023, the state's political landscape drastically changed as Ayade defecting to the APC in May 2021 set in motion a wave of other defections that gave the APC control of the House of Assembly and half of the eight House of Representatives seats by mid-2022.

Ahead of his second term, Ayade stated focuses included the completion of in-progress projects and industrialization;^[7] however, he was routinely criticized for authoritarian-esque actions. Alarms were raised after Ayade's defection when he withheld the salaries of state and local officeholders that refused to defect with him and forcibly converted the state PDP secretariat into the new APC headquarters but the allegations of dictatorial actions were at their peak around his ordered arrests and months-long imprisonments of a critic and a journalist.^{[8][9][10][11][12]} At other points during his administration, Ayade was given praise for allocating large parts of the budget to capital expenditures while receiving further criticism for covering up COVID-19 cases, abandoning in-progress projects for new potential white elephants like the Calas Vegas resort project and the new Obudu Airport, creating several new ministries and appointing dozens of aides, getting an unapproved foreign loan in secret without evidence of use for the money, and continuing efforts to build a six-lane superhighway through the ecologically vital Cross River National Park.^{[13][14][15][16][17][18][19] [20][21]}

The primaries, along with any potential challenges to primary results, were to take place between 4 April and 3 June 2022 but the deadline was extended to 9 June.^[3][22] An informal zoning gentlemen's agreement set the Cross River South Senatorial District to have the next governor as Cross River South has not held the governorship since 2007. Neither major party closed their primaries to non-South candidates, as both the APC and PDP had heated internal debates over zoning to the Southern district.^{[23][24][25][26]} While the APC ended up nominating someone from the South, the PDP chose someone from the Central district.

As the general election campaign began in June 2022, pundits focused on the major candidates' attempts to reconcile aggrieved members of their own parties in the wake of the party primaries. While Otu's qualifications were disputed by his intraparty opponents, the catalyst for internal anti-Onor sentiment within the PDP was his disregard for the zoning principle by running.^[80] At the commencement of the official campaign period in October, analysts again reiterated the significance of zoning as a campaign issue with the potential that an Onor victory could mean the end of the practice in the state's gubernatorial elections; observers also noted Ayade's support of Otu and Onor's strong oratory skills as further campaign factors.^[81] However, the national PDP crisis between the G5 group and the party presidential nominee Atiku Abubakar impacted the Cross River PDP as well, splitting it between G5-aligned and Abubakar-aligned blocs. Onor and the state party chairman led the G5-aligned bloc while the Abubakar-aligned faction was helmed by former Governor Liyel Imoke; by January 2023, observers noted that Onor advertising did not jointly support Abubakar while Abubakar advertising did not mention Onor's gubernatorial candidacy.^[82] The next month, focus switched to the presidential election on 25 February. In the election, Cross River State voted for Peter Obi (LP); Obi won the state with 43.2% of the vote, beating Bola Tinubu (APC) at 31.3% and Atiku Abubakar (PDP) at 22.9%. In the wake of the presidential race, pundits focused on regional differences in the gubernatorial election in addition to the rise of minor candidates and Ayade's senatorial loss.^[83][84][85]

• 2023 Nigerian elections
• 2023 Nigerian gubernatorial elections