It sounds like a joke, but it is not. The headline from Bauchi read like a political earthquake: “APM sweeps all 20 local government elections,” just like that. A party most Nigerians could not place on a map six months ago has suddenly become invincible in one state.
Recall that Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi only recently defected from the PDP to the Allied Peoples Movement, APM. Less than half a year later, the same APM that was barely known has now taken every single chairmanship seat in the state and 319 out of 323 councillorship wards. According to Vanguard of August 19, 2026, BASIEC Chairperson Hajiya Jummai S. Abubakar announced the results late Monday after collation and verification, saying the APM candidates secured the highest valid votes and met all legal requirements. Only four wards escaped the wave, one each to SDP, NRM, ZLP and YPP. In declaring the results, Abubakar commended Governor Bala Mohammed for the support that, in her words, enabled the commission to operate effectively, and she described the process as peaceful and transparent.
To many Nigerians watching from Abuja, Lagos, or on Twitter, the immediate interpretation is simple. Bala Mohammed is performing, the people love him, and so they followed him to APM with 100 percent loyalty. There is no national outrage either, perhaps because it is not INEC and not a presidential election. But that silence itself tells a story.
Political science has a name for what just happened in Bauchi. It is called the “incumbency advantage,” and in Nigerian politics it is supercharged. Scholars like Richard Joseph have long argued that Nigerian federalism runs on what he called “prebendalism,” where state power means control of resources, patronage, and mobilization structures. When a governor moves, the party moves with him, because the governor is the party. That is why APM went from obscurity to dominance overnight. It is also why we saw a similar pattern in Osun with the Accord party, in Oyo with APM, in Abia with Labour, in Anambra with APGA. The governor becomes the brand, the ATM, and the campaign machinery all at once.
Research from the African Studies Centre backs this up. A 2023 study on subnational elections in Nigeria found that governors control on average over 70 percent of campaign financing and grassroots mobilization in their states during off-cycle polls. Voters are not necessarily voting for a party ideology. They are responding to networks, incentives, projects, and the simple logic of “who can deliver now.” That is not unique to Nigeria. Political scientist V.O. Key called it “the friends and neighbors effect” decades ago. People vote for what is closest, most visible, and most consequential to their daily life. In Nigeria, that is the governor.
So when people say “if only INEC is fair, APC will lose the presidency,” they are missing half the equation. Yes, 31 of 36 governors are still APC. But the remaining five are scattered across APM, Accord, Labour, and APGA, and each of them now owns a state structure that can deliver votes, agents, and logistics. Even without winning the presidency, a governor with that kind of grip can easily deliver 25 to 50 percent in his state because he controls the levers. That is power incumbency, and it is why presidential elections in Nigeria are never just about the candidate at the center. They are about 36 state machines.
The double standard is what makes this fascinating and a bit painful to watch. We shout about free and fair elections at the national level, we blame Tinubu, we blame INEC, and yet at the state level we normalize governors handpicking council chairmen and sweeping elections clean. We call it “our governor is working” when it is our man, and “selection not election” when it is the other man. That is what social psychologists call “motivated reasoning.” We judge the same behavior differently depending on whether it benefits our side.
And here is the deeper irony. The main opposition parties nationally, ADC, NDC, and PDP, currently have zero governors between them. The real opposition strength at the moment is fragmented across APM, Labour, Accord, and APGA, all of whom are defined more by their governors than by any national platform. Yet the loudest conversation in the country is still about who takes Aso Rock, as if the presidency exists in a vacuum.
Bauchi is not just about Bauchi. It is a mirror. It shows how quickly a political party can become “viable” once it captures a governor. It shows how easily we accept state-level dominance while demanding perfection at the center. It shows that in Nigeria, parties are often empty vehicles until a governor sits in the driver’s seat.
This is an interesting time indeed. Not because APM won 20 LGAs, but because Bauchi just reminded us again that in Nigerian politics, the governor is the party, the party is the governor, and until we confront that truth honestly, every election will feel both democratic and rigged, depending on which side of the table you are sitting.
Bagudu Mohammed is the Founder, Alternative Perspectives.
Web: https://alternativeperspective.onrender.com
Email: bagudumohammed15197@gmail.com | Phone: 0703 494 3575
