The APC Won Four Of Five By-Elections, And One Result Was A Rout

Geo-Political News

Abuja · Tuesday 22 September 2026

INEC has declared the results of Saturday's five by-elections, one federal constituency and four state constituencies across Gombe, Kano, Bauchi and Delta. The All Progressives Congress won four. The Allied Peoples Movement took the fifth, in Bauchi.

polling station queue voters Photograph by Red Dot via Unsplash.

The numbers, which are the story

Seat	Winner	Margin
Gombe/Kwami/Funakaye, federal	Kallamu MaiJama'a, APC	41,121 to the LP's 3,553
Dawakin Kudu, Kano	Husseini Datti, APC	22,890
Udu, Delta	Okolosi Ator, APC	8,724 to the PDP's 214
Disina, Bauchi	APC	621 votes
Sakwa, Bauchi	APM	4,744

Two of those five margins are landslides. One is 621 votes.

The Udu result is the one to sit with. 8,724 against 214. The PDP governed Delta State continuously for two decades and produced a vice-presidential candidate from it in 2023. A party does not fall from that to 214 votes in a state constituency because of a single campaign. It falls that far when its local structure has already left, which in Delta it largely has.

What a by-election does and does not predict

Turnout is low, the national campaign is not running, and the party with the most to spend locally usually wins. Four out of five is a good day for the APC and not evidence about January. What it does measure is organisation, which is the one thing that transfers directly from a by-election to a general one.

Opposition parties lose seats like these quietly for years, and then express surprise at a general election result that was visible all along.

The Bauchi exception

The APM taking Sakwa by 4,744 votes, and the APC squeezing Disina by 621, are in the same state on the same day. That is a reminder that the ruling party's dominance is uneven and locally negotiated rather than national, and that the smaller parties are not uniformly finished. INEC described the exercise as an operational benchmark for 2027, which is a reasonable way to describe five dress rehearsals.

Reporting: Legit.ng, Blueprint, Politics Digest and Daily Post Nigeria.

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