Delta State witnessed a political earthquake on Monday as the All Progressives Congress concluded its senatorial primaries ahead of the 2027 general elections, with results that stunned observers, humbled heavyweights and set the stage for what promises to be the most consequential electoral battle the state has seen in years.
Three contests. Three dominant winners. And two of the most recognizable names in Delta politics left to reckon with defeats they likely did not anticipate.
THE FALL OF A GIANT IN DELTA CENTRAL
Before Monday, Ovie Omo-Agege was still regarded by many as one of the most powerful politicians Delta State had produced in the democratic era. A two-term senator. A former Deputy Senate President. A man who had placed his career on the line for the APC during years when the party barely had a foothold in the state.
That reputation did not survive the day.
When party officials finished counting, incumbent Senator Ede Dafinone had polled 116,252 votes across the eight local government areas of Delta Central. Omo-Agege received 3,643. The gap between them was not a political setback. It was a demolition.
What made the outcome even more startling was that Omo-Agege had, hours earlier, issued a statement declaring himself the winner. He spoke of long queues at ward voting centres, of an overwhelming mandate, of a clear endorsement from the people. By the time official results were read out, that narrative had completely collapsed.
Dafinone, measured and deliberate in his response, described the process as transparent and called on his defeated rival to come together for the battles ahead. He appealed directly to Omo-Agege to set aside the contest and channel his efforts toward a united APC campaign in 2027. It was a gracious gesture, though the political reality beneath it was stark. The man Omo-Agege once helped climb to the Senate had just reduced him to a footnote in the district’s primary results.
The question now is what Omo-Agege does next. Some observers have raised the possibility of a defection to another platform, a move that could substantially alter the dynamics of the general election. That uncertainty will hang over the APC in Delta Central until it is resolved.
OKOWA ARRIVES, NWOKO DEPARTS
The story in Delta North was different in its details but similar in its outcome. Former Governor Ifeanyi Okowa, who governed Delta State for eight years under the Peoples Democratic Party before crossing to the APC, made his entrance into the party’s senatorial contest with the kind of performance that leaves little to interpretation.
Okowa polled 113,309 votes. Ned Nwoko, the sitting senator, received 2,612. A third candidate, Mariam Ali, recorded 40 votes.
Nwoko is not an insignificant political figure. He has represented Delta North in the Senate since 2019, built a public profile around causes that attracted national and international attention, and occupied a visible space in Nigerian public life beyond the walls of the legislature. None of that translated into votes on Monday.
The reasons are not difficult to identify. Nwoko had been at odds with key figures in the state party structure, and those tensions appear to have been decisive. Okowa, by contrast, arrived with the organisational machinery of a man who spent nearly a decade governing the state, with networks that run deep across local governments, party chapters and community structures throughout Delta North. When party members stood in open ballot lines, their choice was emphatic.
THOMAS UNCHALLENGED IN DELTA SOUTH
While Delta Central and Delta North generated the drama, Delta South delivered a result that was commanding in its own right. Incumbent Senator Joel Onowakpo Thomas defeated his challenger, Hon. Michael Diden, by a margin that left no room for contest.
The final figures told a clear story. Thomas polled 87,805 votes to Diden’s 30,798, winning in six of the eight local government areas that make up the senatorial district. Returning Officer Dr. Ifeanyi Osuoza declared Thomas the winner after confirming he had satisfied all party requirements and secured the highest number of valid votes cast.
Independent National Electoral Commission officials monitored the exercise throughout. There were no serious disputes, no rival claims of victory, no atmosphere of tension. Thomas, a former Chairman of the Delta State Board of Internal Revenue, goes into 2027 as the APC’s most settled senatorial candidate in the state.
WHAT MONDAY MEANS FOR 2027
Step back from the individual contests and a clearer picture emerges. The APC has, in a single day, locked in candidates across all three senatorial districts in Delta State. That is a position the party has not occupied before heading into a general election in this state, and the implications are significant.
The emergence of Okowa as an APC candidate in Delta North alone changes the arithmetic of that race in ways that will force the PDP to rethink its approach entirely. Combined with Dafinone’s demonstrated dominance in Delta Central and Thomas’s convincing performance in Delta South, the party now has a credible platform to mount a serious challenge across the board.
There is also a broader subtext to Monday’s results. The influence of Governor Sheriff Oborevwori’s political network, though operating across party lines, appears to have shaped these outcomes in ways that were not always openly acknowledged in the lead up to the primaries. The alignment between his administration and the winning candidates across all three districts points to a convergence of political forces that could prove formidable when the general election arrives.
Managing what comes next will matter just as much as what happened at the primaries . The wounds from these primaries, particularly in Delta Central, are fresh. How the party handles them will say a great deal about whether Monday’s results translate into actual Senate seats when Nigerians go to the polls in 2027.
