The 2023 Plateau State gubernatorial election will take place on 18 March 2023, to elect the Governor of Plateau State, concurrent with elections to the Plateau 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 Simon Lalong is term-limited and cannot seek re-election to a third term.

Party primaries were scheduled for between 4 April and 9 June 2022 with the Peoples Democratic Party nominating Caleb Mutfwang—former Mangu Local Government Chairman—on 25 May while the All Progressives Congress nominated Nentawe Yilwatda on 26 May.^[4][5] In August, former commissioner Patrick Dakum—a withdrawn aspirant in the APC primary—won the nomination of the Labour Party in a rerun primary.^[6]

The Governor of Plateau 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.

Plateau State is a diverse, agriculture-based state in the North Central; although it has vast natural resources, Plateau has faced issues in security as inter-ethnic violence and conflict between herders and farmers heavily affect the state. The overproliferation of weaponry and increased pressure for land along with failures in governance led to the worsening of these clashes in the years ahead of the election.^[7]

Politically, Plateau's 2019 elections were a mixed bag for both major parties. On the federal level, PDP nominee Atiku Abubakar narrowly won the state but it swung slightly towards Buhari; legislatively, the parties fairly evenly split the Senate seats and won House of Representatives seats. Statewise, Lalong won re-election by about 4% of the vote and the APC won a majority in the House of Assembly.

At the beginning of Lalong's second term, he announced that the administration would center its policy on infrastructure development, peace and community security, and sustainable economic growth.^[8] In terms of his performance, Lalong was commended for infrastructural development while being criticized for a poor response to increasingly deadly interethnic violence and denying opposition politicians access to government-owned media.^[9][10]

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][11] An informal zoning gentlemen's agreement sets the Plateau Central Senatorial District may have the next governor as Plateau Central has not held the governorship since 2007. While the PDP has zoned its nomination to the central district, the APC did not zone its nomination; both parties' nominees came from the Central district.^[12][13]

The major parties' nominees spent the months of June and July 2022 focusing on the aftermath of party primaries. While Mutfwang held reconciliatory meetings with his former primary opponents and claimed to have unified the state PDP, the alleged imposition of Yilwatda by Lalong precluded reconciliation efforts within the state APC as losing primary candidates formed a factional forum with other aggrieved party members in late July 'to protest the injustice meted out to them during the party primaries.'^[46][59] As the focus shifted the general election campaign itself, analysts noted potential dynamics including the APC infighting along with the experience of both Mutfwang and Yilwatda in addition to the more prominent minor party nominees—Sani Dawop (ADP), Samuel Abashe (APGA), Patrick Dakum (LP), and Luka Panpe Yakubu (PRP).^[60][61] However, August brought reports of internal crisis in the PDP as rival blocs supportive of either former Governor Jonah Jang or former Senator Jeremiah Useni ratcheted up their dispute amid the national PDP Atiku Abubakar vs. Ezenwo Nyesom Wike crisis.^[62]

By November, analysis focused on the power of the APC's incumbency while also noting ethnic and regional dynamics.^[63] The next month, pundits noted continued criticism of Yilwatda due to his alleged primary imposition by Lalong along with allegations that Mutfwang did not pay civil servant salaries during his tenure as local government chairman.^[64] In the new year, reporting labeled Dakum as a major candidate due to the rise of the state LP and the conclusion of the legal dispute over the LP nomination. With the election's new framing as a three-way contest, punditry focused on each candidate's strengths and weaknesses: for Dakum, the popularity of Peter Obi—the LP presidential nominee—greatly helped his campaign viability but the party still lacks a substantial overarching structure in the state; for Mutfwang, his grassroots network was reportedly strong but the PDP crises had greatly hurt his campaign; and for Yilwatda, his personality and APC incumbency were categorized as boosts but the party crisis and APC unpopularity worked against him.^[65]

Much of the last stretch of campaigning was dominated by attention on the presidential election on 25 February. In the election, Plateau State voted for Peter Obi (LP); Abubakar won the state with 42.9% of the vote, beating Bola Tinubu (APC) at 28.2% and Atiku Abubakar (PDP) at 22.4%. With Obi's performance boosting his chances and a favorable Supreme Court that affirmed his candidacy, Dakum gained momentum in the final weeks of campaigning.^[66] At the same time, reports noted the competitiveness of the election and the LP's downballot weakness along with Lalong's own senatorial loss.^[67][68]

• 2023 Nigerian elections
• 2023 Nigerian gubernatorial elections