Former Governor Rauf Aregbesola says the 2023 election results do not support the claim that the party with the most governors will win the presidential election, citing President Bola Tinubu’s electoral defeat in Lagos and Osun.

“To puncture this argument that when you have governors with you, you are sure of victory, I’ll cite election results from two zones, South-West and South-East,” said Mr Aregbesola, an estranged ally and protege of Mr Tinubu, turned political adversary, at a book launch in Abuja on Tuesday.

He explained, “In South-West, APC controlled all the states except one, Oyo state. The performance of that party in that election in the South-West was 55 per cent. Other parties took the rest. That’s not all.”

Citing Mr Tinubu’s electoral loss in Lagos and Osun, Mr Aregbesola said, “The safest state was Lagos. The APC candidate lost his ward, local government, and the state. How worse can it get? He lost Osun, where his nephew was governor in that election. So, where is the claim that governors win elections?”

Mr Aregbesola, a leading figure in the African Democratic Congress coalition, challenged the ruling All Progressives Congress to commit to free and fair elections and see if they can win the 2027 election.

“APC had two states in the South-East. The result is amazing. APC had 5.8 per cent of the total votes of that election, while LP had 89.6 per cent. I will stop at that. The results from these two zones clearly tell us that governors don’t win elections. The people do,” Mr Aregbesola added. “What we require from the oligopoly that is in charge of Nigeria and claiming to have taken over the space is to commit itself to free and fair elections, and we will see.”

Of the 36 governors, 29 are now in the APC.