2023 Kano State gubernatorial election

The 2023 Kano State gubernatorial election took place on 18 March 2023, to elect the Governor of Kano State, concurrent with elections to the Kano State House of Assembly as well as twenty-seven other gubernatorial elections and elections to all other state houses of assembly. The election, which was postponed from its original 11 March date, was held three weeks after the presidential election and National Assembly elections. Incumbent APC Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje was term-limited and could not seek re-election to a third term. Abba Kabir Yusuf — a former commissioner and son-in-law of former Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso — gained the office for the NNPP by a 6.5% margin over Deputy Governor Nasir Yusuf Gawuna, the APC nominee.

Party primaries were scheduled for between 4 April and 9 June 2022 with the All Progressives Congress nominating Gawuna on 26 May while the New Nigeria Peoples Party nominated Yusuf on 6 June. For the Peoples Democratic Party, two separate parallel primaries were held on 25 May with one primary nominating Mohammed Abacha — the son and bagman of former military dictator Sani Abacha — while the other primary picked former commissioner Sadiq Wali; about a month after the primaries, INEC recognized Abacha as the legitimate nominee but switched recognition to Wali by July. Recognition returned to Abacha in December due to the ruling of a Federal High Court, but returned to Wali due to a Court of Appeal judgment in February 2023.

In the early morning of 20 March, Yusuf was declared the winner by INEC after results showed him winning nearly 1.02 million votes (~52% of the vote) compared to Gawuna's total of about 891,000 votes (~45% of the vote) while Wali came a distant third place with nearly 16,000 votes (less than 1% of the vote). Although Gawuna conceded defeat on 29 March, the state APC rejected the results and commenced a legal battle that initially succeeded as judgements from the election tribunal in September and the Court of Appeal in November overturned the result and declared Gawuna as the rightful winner. However, the Supreme Court upheld the election of Yusuf in a January 2024 ruling. Much like the election period, the post-election legal battles led to tensions across the state with sporadic protests and unrest.