President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has emerged as the All Progressives Congress presidential candidate for the 2027 general election after sweeping the party’s nationwide direct primary election conducted across 8,809 wards on Saturday, polling a commanding total of 10,999,967 votes to defeat his sole challenger, Stanley Osifo, who managed just 16,504 votes across the country.

The results were collated and announced on Sunday at the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu International Conference Centre in Abuja, where governors of 31 states and other senior party figures serving as state coordinators and collation officers presented outcomes to the Presidential Primary Election Committee chaired by former Senate President Pius Anyim.

Tinubu’s strongest single-state performance came from Lagos, his political base and Nigeria’s commercial capital, where he polled 814,988 votes his highest tally in any state. Adamawa followed with 644,149 votes, while Kaduna delivered 618,914. Imo returned 582,960, and Kano produced 500,852. The president recorded commanding victories in both the North and South, with Katsina contributing 467,003 votes, Gombe 450,517, and Borno 414,988. In the South-South and South-East, Delta gave the president 407,646 votes, Akwa Ibom 389,197, and Enugu 383,382. Benue contributed 374,787 and Rivers 280,082. Osifo recorded zero votes in several states across the federation, with modest showings limited to a handful, including 2,675 in Kano, 1,186 in Lagos, 1,007 in Abia, and 929 in Oyo.

The North-West delivered strong aggregate figures for the president. Ogun produced 322,485, Zamfara 321,579, Kwara 310,990, Sokoto 301,000 and Kebbi 292,972, while Nasarawa returned 285,436 and Yobe 253,804. Plateau gave 241,720 and Taraba 183,698. Ondo returned 181,996, Niger 175,487, Bauchi 156,541 and Kogi 197,370. In the South-West, Oyo contributed 142,754, Osun 100,888 and Ekiti 85,340. The president’s lowest returns came from Anambra with 43,034 votes and the FCT with 36,103, though Osifo’s figures in these areas remained negligible.

The exercise was described by party officials as peaceful across all states, with governors presiding over collation in their respective territories and party faithful turning out in large numbers.

Tinubu is set to receive the APC’s certificate of return and party flag as its 2027 presidential candidate on Sunday, with the presentation scheduled at the Bola Ahmed Tinubu International Conference Centre in Abuja.

The primary, which was supervised by state collation officers, was conducted under the framework of a direct primary in which registered APC members across all wards participated. Party officials described the outcome as a resounding show of confidence in the president’s leadership and a strong foundation for what they characterised as a united APC heading into the next electoral cycle. With Tinubu now formally the party’s candidate, attention turns to the broader 2027 landscape, where opposition parties themselves mired in internal crises face the challenge of mounting a competitive campaign against a ruling party that has now consolidated around an incumbent with near-unanimous internal support.