The 2023 Kwara State gubernatorial election will take place on 18 March 2023, to elect the Governor of Kwara State, concurrent with elections to the Kwara State House of Assembly as well as twenty-seven other gubernatorial elections and elections to all other state houses of assembly.^[1][2] The election—which was postponed from its original 11 March date—will be held three weeks after the presidential election and National Assembly elections.^[3] Incumbent APC Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq has been renominated by his party.

The primaries, scheduled for between 4 April and 9 June 2022, resulted in AbdulRazaq being renominated by the All Progressives Congress unopposed on 26 May while the Peoples Democratic Party nominated Shuaib Yaman Abdullahi on 25 May.^[4][5] For the Social Democratic Party, its first primary on 25 May was annulled leading to a rerun on 30 May; both primaries were won by Hakeem Lawal.^[6]

The governor of Kwara 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.

Kwara State is a large state in the North Central with a growing economy and vast natural areas but facing agricultural underdevelopment, deforestation, and insecurity.^[7][8] The state's 2019 elections had a large swing towards the state APC. Although the APC had won most 2015 elections in Kwara, the vast majority of APC officeholders left the party in 2018 to follow Senator Bukola Saraki into the PDP; despite the Saraki dynasty's longstanding control over Kwaran politics, the APC-led Ó Tó Gẹ́ movement swept the state in 2019. The APC won all three senate seats back and in the process, defeated Saraki by a wide margin. Similarly, the APC gained five PDP-held House seats to sweep all House of Representatives elections. On the state level, the APC gained the governorship and all but one seat in the House of Assembly. These results, coupled with presidential incumbent Muhammadu Buhari (APC) winning the state with nearly 70%, led to the categorization of the 2019 elections as a seismic shift in the state's politics.

During AbdulRazaq's 2019 campaign, he based pledges on improving government transparency, rehabilitating transportation, and gender inclusivity among others.^[9] In terms of his performance, AbdulRazaq was praised for education policy, healthcare investment, appointing Nigeria's first majority-women state cabinet, and social investment programmes.^{[10][11][12][13]} On the other hand, he was criticized for mishandling the demolition of a Saraki family property, alleged ethnic and regional prejudice when making a KWASU appointment, illegally dismissing elected local government chairmen and failing to conduct constitutionally-mandated local government elections, and raising the state debt.^{[14][15][16][17][18][19]}

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.^[2][20] According to some candidates and community leaders from the Northern district, an informal zoning gentlemen's agreement sets the Kwara North Senatorial District to have the next governor as since the 1999 return of democracy, all Kwara governors have come from either the Kwara Central or Kwara South Senatorial Districts.^[21] In accordance with these calls, the PDP zoned its nomination to the North but the APC did not close its primary to non-Northerners and renominated AbdulRazaq, who is from Ilorin West in Kwara Central; the SDP nominated Hakeem Lawal from Ilorin East in the central district as well.

In the wake of the primaries, pundits reiterated the competitiveness of the general election while noting the continued defections from the APC to the SDP and the calls for zoning to the northern district, which only the PDP heeded.^[72] Defections from the APC were seen as especially damaging for AbdulRazaq in the months after the 2022 Osun State gubernatorial election—divides in the Osun APC aided in the unseating of the APC incumbent as his internal opponents helped other parties;^[73] however, it was also noted that the two main aggrieved APC members—Minister of Information and Culture Lai Mohammed and Minister of State for Mines and Steel Development Gbemisola Ruqayyah Saraki—appeared to have split with Mohammed supporters backing the Lawal while Saraki appears to have reconciled with her brother as her supporters backed the PDP.^[74]

In July and August, the AbdulRazaq and Abdullahi campaigns were noted as being among several election campaigns that used the catastrophic Alanamu Market fire to hawk for votes.^[75][76] The post-market fire campaign spots were seen of further proof that the Central District would be the battleground area for the election; later reporting in September focused on the fact that all major candidates other than Abdullahi are from the Central District. In turn, Abdullahi's native North District was considered safe for him while the South District was categorized as a battle between AbdulRazaq and Abdullahi.^[77]

By October, AbdulRazaq began conducting town halls throughout the state alongside other elected officials. The PDP loudly protested the events, claiming that framing campaign events as "town hall meetings" by the governor was disingenuous while the use of public funds for the events was wasteful.^[78] Later that month, pundits reiterated the potentially ruinous impact divides within the APC could have on AbdulRazaq's campaign.^[79] The next month, on 7 November, the first public poll—conducted by NIO Polls and commissioned by the Anap Foundation—was released for the race with it showing a substantial lead for AbdulRazaq while Abdullahi and Lawal trailed in second and third, respectively.^[80] Conversely, Adebola Bakare—the national secretary of the Nigerian Political Science Association—opined that the election was a tossup in late December 2022 with claims that Abdullahi was still winning his native northern region but now Lawal had gained in the southern region while AbdulRazaq was leading in the central region.^[81]

By 2023, attention largely switched to the presidential election on 25 February. In the election, Kwara State voted for Bola Tinubu (APC); Tinubu won 56.1% of the vote to defeat Atiku Abubakar (PDP) at 29.1% and Peter Obi (LP) at 6.6%. Although the result was unsurprising as Kwara is in Tinubu's southwestern base and projections had favored him, the totals led to increased focus on AbdulRazaq campaign due to Tinubu's wide margin of victory. Gubernatorial campaign analysis in the wake of the presidential election noted unique regional and religious dynamics while reiterating the potential impact of the continued APC divides.^[82] Despite the APC crisis, the EiE-SBM forecast projected AbdulRazaq to win based on "APC’s sweep of the federal elections."^[83]

Polling

More information Polling organisation/client, Fieldwork date ...

Polling organisation/client	Fieldwork date	Sample size		PDP	SDP	Others	Undecided	None/No response/Refused
			AbdulRazaq APC	Abdullahi PDP	Lawal SDP
NIO Polls for Anap Foundation	October 2022	500	30%	11%	3%	3%	31%	22%[lower-alpha 1]

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• 2023 Nigerian elections
• 2023 Nigerian gubernatorial elections