In Nigerian politics, we often misunderstand elections. We obsess over who came first, rarely interrogate how others performed — and completely ignore what shifted beneath the surface. In consequence, we generally are unable to take the full delivery of the layers of scientific lessons that can be deployed to enhance healthy political competition, which is great for our democracy.
That is why the 2025 Anambra gubernatorial election produced a result that deserves far more attention than it has received. The performance of Sir Paul Chukwuma, the candidate of the Young Progressive Party (YPP), in the race deserves more attention than it has been given.
Coming third may sound modest in a political culture conditioned to think only in binaries — winner and loser. But context matters. In this case, context changes everything. To buttress, Sir Paul Chukwuma’s YPP came third, ahead of PDP, LP, and ADC. To appreciate YPP’s disruptive performance in that election, one must understand that YPP is the only party that participated in the election on its own merit. Others participated on the strength of national links and stakeholder’s support.
Sir Paul Chukwuma joined YPP late, after he declined to participate in the APC primaries, leading to his resignation from the party. He did not have the advantage of entrenched party machinery, long-standing grassroots funding pipelines, or decades of inherited political loyalty. YPP itself, before this election, was widely regarded as a fringe platform — more visible for ideals than for votes.
Yet the results told a different story.
Against expectations, YPP did not merely “participate”; it outperformed the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), a party with deep roots, recognisable branding, and decades of experience in Anambra politics. It outperformed the LP, a party with two serving senators, multiple members of the House of Representatives, and nearly ten members of the Anambra State House of Assembly. In many constituencies, YPP polled competitively where it had never done so before.
That is not pedestrian performance. That is a political upset.
What makes this even more striking is how little attention it received. Post-election reporting largely focused on familiar parties — APC, APGA, PDP — even when some of those parties recorded lower vote counts than YPP. The media narrative lagged behind the numbers.
This matters because democracy is not only about votes cast; it is also about how results are interpreted. When we fail to highlight strong performances by non-establishment actors, we discourage alternative politics and reinforce a closed political loop dominated by legacy parties.
Sir Paul Chukwuma’s outing demonstrated something Nigerians have quietly suspected for years: that voter behaviour, especially among the youth and urban professionals, is shifting faster than our political commentary acknowledges.
Third place, in this circumstance, is not the end of a story. It is the beginning of one.
History shows that many dominant political movements did not start by winning — they started by disrupting expectations. This election may well be remembered as the moment when Anambra politics first signalled that disruption was no longer theoretical.
Ignoring the YPP’s performance would be a mistake, because, it’s candidate, Sir Paul Chukwuma, has shown without any doubt that he is the leading opposition figure in Anambra State as of today. In fact, Sir Paul Chukwuma is the face of new opposition in Anambra State.
About Author
