Wadada, Adamu, Ombugadu Shape Three-Horse Race for Nasarawa

The 2027 governorship election in Nasarawa State is taking shape around three prominent politicians; Senator Ahmed Aliyu Wadada of the All Progressives Congress (APC), former Inspector-General of Police Mohammed Adamu of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate David Ombugadu.

Each enters the election from a different political position, with the APC defending its control of the state, the SDP candidate emerging from a split within the ruling party, and the PDP returning with a familiar face from the last two governorship elections.

Wadada secured the APC ticket after defeating Adamu in the party’s governorship primary.

He polled 195,285 votes, while Adamu recorded 39,675 votes in the exercise conducted across the state’s 147 wards.

The primary followed months of internal competition over who would succeed Governor Abdullahi Sule when his second term expires in 2027.

Sule had backed Wadada ahead of the primary, placing the senator at the centre of the administration’s succession plans.

Adamu, however, did not abandon his governorship ambition after losing the ticket.

The former police chief left the APC and joined the SDP, where he subsequently secured the party’s governorship ticket.

His move shifted the battle from an internal APC contest to a broader electoral confrontation, with Adamu now seeking support outside the party where he had campaigned for the governorship.

Former governor Tanko Al-Makura has also backed Adamu.

Al-Makura governed Nasarawa from 2011 to 2019 and later represented Nasarawa South in the Senate. He defeated then-incumbent Governor Aliyu Akwe Doma in 2011 on the platform of the Congress for Progressive Change.

His support gives Adamu an influential political figure with a history of governorship contests and experience in the state’s political structure.

Al-Makura had opposed Wadada’s emergence as Sule’s preferred successor and backed Adamu during the APC contest, placing him on the opposite side of the succession question from the incumbent governor.

Wadada has since moved forward with the APC ticket.

The senator now carries the ruling party’s platform into the 2027 election, with the APC seeking to retain Government House after Sule’s eight years in office.

The PDP, meanwhile, is returning with Ombugadu, who has already faced Sule twice at the governorship level.

Ombugadu contested the 2019 and 2023 elections and remained the PDP’s leading challenger in both contests. In 2023, Sule was declared winner with 347,209 votes against Ombugadu’s 283,016, producing a margin of 64,193 votes.

His return gives the PDP a candidate with an established statewide campaign network and recent experience confronting the APC administration.

The political configuration is now different from 2023 because Adamu, who was previously inside the APC structure, is contesting from another party.

That move could affect how votes that might otherwise have remained within the ruling party are distributed, while the PDP will also be seeking to consolidate its opposition base.

Wadada is a serving senator and emerged from the APC primary with a decisive margin over Adamu. His campaign also carries the backing of Sule, who has made clear his preference for the senator as his successor.

Adamu brings a different political profile. He served as Inspector-General of Police from 2020 to 2021 before entering the Nasarawa governorship contest and subsequently leaving the APC after losing its ticket.

Ombugadu, meanwhile, has become one of the PDP’s most recognisable figures in the state after two successive governorship campaigns.

The contest has already drawn in influential figures, with Al-Makura’s backing of Adamu putting a prominent APC figure on the opposite side of the succession battle from Sule.

Ombugadu returns with the advantage of a previous statewide campaign and a substantial vote haul from 2023, when he came within 64,193 votes of Sule.

Adamu’s defection has changed the political arithmetic. He is no longer seeking to overturn the APC primary from within; he is challenging the party’s candidate under the SDP, with Al-Makura among his leading supporters.

Wadada now carries the APC ticket while the PDP seeks another opening through Ombugadu and Adamu attempts to turn his former position inside the ruling party into support under the SDP.

The battle for Nasarawa Government House has consequently moved beyond the APC primary, with the divisions exposed by the nomination process now feeding directly into the 2027 election.