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The 2023 Presidential Election was historic for the way it fragmented the Nigerian electorate across geopolitical lines. Below is the full state-by-state breakdown of the official votes cast for the four major candidates.

2023 Presidential Election: Official State-by-State Results

Geopolitical Zone	State	Tinubu (APC)	Atiku (PDP)	Obi (LP)	Kwankwaso (NNPP)
North West	Kano	517,341	131,716	28,513	997,279
	Kaduna	399,293	554,360	294,494	92,969
	Katsina	482,283	489,045	6,376	69,386
	Jigawa	421,390	386,587	1,889	98,172
	Kebbi	248,088	285,175	10,682	5,038
	Sokoto	285,444	289,520	6,568	1,300
	Zamfara	298,396	193,298	1,611	4,044
North East	Bauchi	316,694	426,607	27,373	72,103
	Adamawa	182,881	417,611	105,648	8,006
	Borno	252,282	190,921	7,205	4,626
	Gombe	146,977	319,123	26,160	10,520
	Taraba	135,165	189,017	146,315	12,818
	Yobe	151,459	198,567	2,406	18,270
North Central	Benue	310,468	130,081	308,372	4,740
	Kwara	263,572	136,909	31,166	3,141
	Niger	375,183	284,898	80,452	21,836
	Kogi	240,751	145,104	56,217	4,238
	Plateau	307,195	243,808	466,272	8,869
	Nasarawa	172,922	147,093	191,361	12,715
	FCT	90,902	74,199	281,717	4,517
South West	Lagos	572,606	75,750	582,454	8,442
	Oyo	449,884	182,977	99,393	4,068
	Ogun	341,554	123,831	85,829	2,204
	Ondo	369,924	115,463	47,350	930
	Osun	343,945	354,366	23,283	713
	Ekiti	201,494	89,554	11,397	264
South East	Anambra	5,111	9,036	584,621	1,967
	Enugu	4,772	15,749	428,640	1,608
	Imo	66,171	30,044	352,904	1,536
	Abia	8,914	22,676	327,095	1,151
	Ebonyi	42,402	13,503	259,738	512
South South	Rivers	231,571	88,468	175,071	1,322
	Delta	90,183	161,600	341,866	3,122
	Akwa Ibom	160,143	214,012	132,683	7,796
	Edo	144,471	89,585	331,163	2,732
	Cross River	130,520	95,425	179,917	1,651
	Bayelsa	42,572	68,818	49,975	540
NATIONAL TOTALS		8,794,726	6,984,520	6,101,533	1,496,687

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Quick Analytic Takeaways

• Tinubu (APC): Won 12 states. His victory was anchored in the South West (winning 5 of 6 states) and a strong showing across the North West and North Central.

• Atiku (PDP): Won 12 states. His strength was highest in the North East and North West. He struggled in the South, only winning Akwa Ibom and Bayelsa.

• Obi (LP): Won 11 states and the FCT. He achieved a near-total sweep of the South East and South South and made history by winning Lagos, the FCT, and Plateau.

• Kwankwaso (NNPP): Won 1 state (Kano). While he polled over 1.4 million votes, his influence remained highly localized to the Kano axis.

 

The Swing States

The “swing” effect in 2023 was driven by three specific states that broke decades of political tradition. These states didn’t just provide votes; they fundamentally shifted the national math for the major candidates.

1. Lagos State: The “Heartland” Upset

Lagos was the most significant swing of the election. For the first time since 1999, the “owner” of Lagos politics (Tinubu) lost his home state.

• The Swing: Peter Obi defeated Tinubu by ~10,000 votes in a state that was considered the APC’s impregnable fortress.

• The Impact: This result was a massive psychological blow to the APC and a signal of the “Third Force” (LP) strength. However, because the margin was so small, it didn’t “drain” Tinubu’s national lead—it simply denied him the 1-million-vote surplus he usually counts on from Lagos.

2. Kano State: The “Spoilers” Fortress

Kano is Nigeria’s largest voting bloc. Historically, it is a two-way battle between APC and PDP. In 2023, Rabiu Kwankwaso (NNPP) turned it into a “one-candidate” state.

• The Swing: Kwankwaso took 997,279 votes, leaving the APC and PDP with relatively small remnants.

• The Impact: This was the decisive swing for Atiku Abubakar. In 2019, the PDP got over 390,000 votes in Kano. In 2023, they dropped to just 131,716. Kwankwaso effectively “locked” the North West’s largest vote bank, preventing Atiku from gaining the Northern momentum he needed to overtake Tinubu.

3. Plateau State: The Middle Belt Realignment

Plateau has traditionally been a PDP stronghold or a battleground. In 2023, it swung violently toward the Labour Party.

• The Swing: Peter Obi polled 466,272 votes, more than doubling the combined votes of Tinubu and Atiku.

• The Impact: This swing proved that the “Obidient” movement wasn’t just a Southern phenomenon. By winning Plateau and Nasarawa, Obi created a “Middle Belt Buffer” that prevented the APC from sweeping the North Central, which historically helped solidify the winner’s mandate.

State	2019 Pattern	2023 Swing Winner	Margin/Context
Lagos	APC Stronghold	Peter Obi (LP)	Won by ~10k votes; first loss for Tinubu’s camp.
Kano	APC/PDP Battle	Kwankwaso (NNPP)	Won with 58% of the vote; neutralized APC/PDP.
Plateau	PDP Stronghold	Peter Obi (LP)	Won by over 150k votes over the runner-up.

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The “Un-Swung” State: Rivers

While Lagos and Kano swung away from the status quo, Rivers State performed a controversial “reverse swing.”

• In 2019, Rivers gave the PDP 473,000 votes.

• In 2023, despite Peter Obi’s massive popularity in the streets of Port Harcourt, the official results gave Tinubu (APC) the win with 231,571 votes.

• Analytic Note: Many observers cite Rivers as the state that most significantly impacted the national total by swinging from the PDP base to the APC, rather than to the LP as expected.

Based on the official data from the 2023 Presidential Election, here are the total summed votes specifically for the 19 Northern states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

This total represents the collective strength of each candidate across the North West, North East, and North Central zones.

Northern Nigeria Comprehensive Totals (2023)
Candidate	North West	North East	North Central/FCT	Total Northern Vote	% of Northern Vote
Atiku Abubakar (PDP)	2,329,801	2,161,813	1,164,202	5,655,816	38.08%
Bola Tinubu (APC)	2,652,235	1,185,458	1,760,993	5,598,686	37.69%
Peter Obi (LP)	358,241	275,012	1,414,376	2,047,629	13.79%
R. Kwankwaso (NNPP)	1,366,181	124,593	60,456	1,551,230	10.44%
TOTAL	6,706,458	3,746,876	4,400,027	14,853,361	100.00%

Quick Analysis of the Summed Totals

• The Narrowest Margin: When you sum up the entire North, Atiku Abubakar won the region by a mere 57,130 votes over Bola Tinubu. In a region that cast nearly 15 million valid votes for these four candidates, this margin is incredibly slim (0.39%).

• The “Disruptor” Impact: The combined votes of Peter Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso in the North total 3,598,859. This confirms that the two “third-party” candidates successfully broke the traditional binary hold of the APC and PDP in the North, capturing over 24% of the total Northern vote.

• Regional Strongholds:

  • Atiku dominated the total count due to his massive surplus in the North East.

  • Tinubu stayed neck-and-neck with Atiku by winning the total popular vote in the North West.

  • Obi secured his 2 million-plus Northern votes primarily from the North Central (Middle Belt).

  • Kwankwaso derived the vast majority of his total Northern strength from Kano State alone.

This final comparison illustrates why the North remains the political powerhouse of Nigeria. While the South holds a significant number of registered voters, the North consistently translates its register into actual ballots at a much higher rate.

Here is the analytical breakdown of Registered Voters versus Actual Voter Turnout for the North and South.

National Registration vs. Turnout (2023)

Region	Registered Voters	Actual Votes Cast (Approx)	Turnout Rate (%)
The North (19 States + FCT)	50,478,429	15,361,677	30.4%
The South (17 States)	42,990,579	9,603,541	22.3%
NATIONAL TOTAL	93,469,008	24,965,218	26.7%

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Comparative Analytics

1. The “Participation Gap”

The North has approximately 7.5 million more registered voters than the South and also produced nearly 5.8 million more actual votes. This means the North’s influence on the final result was disproportionately larger than its population lead. For every 10 people who registered in the North, 3 voted; in the South, only about 2 out of 10 made it to the finish line.

2. Regional Performance Highs and Lows

• The Northern Standard: The North West (31.4%) and North Central (30.5%) were the only zones in the country to cross the 30% threshold. This collective consistency across 19 states created a massive “vote bank” that was difficult for Southern-based candidates to overcome.

• The Southern Slump: The South South recorded the lowest turnout in Nigeria at 18.2%, despite having a very high registration of over 14 million. If the South South had matched the North West’s turnout rate (31.4%), it would have produced an additional 1.9 million votes, which could have drastically shifted the national rankings.

3. The Demographic Paradox

The South West (home to Lagos) has the second-highest number of registered voters in Nigeria (~18 million), yet it produced fewer actual votes (4.0 million) than the North Central (4.8 million), which has nearly 3 million fewer people on its register.

Summary of Influence

• The North: Effectively decided the presidency by maintaining a higher “turnout floor.” The competition between Atiku and Tinubu for these high-engagement voters was the most critical part of the 2023 race.

• The South: While the South showed intense interest (especially with the “Obidient” movement), logistical delays, voter suppression reports, and historical apathy in major urban centers like Lagos and Port Harcourt kept the actual impact of the Southern register far below its potential.

These analytic data suggests that for any party to win in the future, they must either crack the North’s high-turnout machinery or find a way to fix the logistical and apathy issues that keep Southern turnout in the low 20s.

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