Zone B 2027: Ortom, Zam, and the Fight for Benue North-West

Benue North-West — known to voters simply as Zone B — has been one of the state’s most competitive senatorial districts for over a decade, and the 2027 race looks set to continue that pattern. The contest pits a former first lady stepping into politics in her own right against an incumbent senator who has already beaten her family once. A third party is also in the mix, and the primary season itself has been anything but quiet.

The PDP Candidate: Eunice Ortom

Dr. (Mrs.) Eunice Erdoo Ortom, wife of former Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom, emerged as the PDP’s candidate for Zone B in May 2026, affirmed at the party’s zonal primary after what stakeholders described as a broad consensus-building process among local government leaders, elders, and women’s and youth groups across the district’s seven LGAs.

Her case, as her supporters make it, rests on two pillars. The first is her record as first lady: for eight years, party stakeholders say, she led initiatives on healthcare, education, and support for women, children, internally displaced persons, and widows across the state. The second is the Eunice Spring of Life Foundation, the nonprofit she founded, which stakeholders credit with humanitarian programs reaching thousands of Benue residents in health, education, and empowerment. Backers have also pointed to her husband’s gubernatorial record — infrastructure investment, clearing salary and pension arrears, and the Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law aimed at farmer-herder conflict — as part of the broader case for her candidacy, on the theory that she was a partner in that governance record, not a bystander to it.

Her critics, meanwhile, have focused less on her record than on the process that produced her candidacy. Some have argued her emergence amounted to political imposition rather than genuine consensus, and that her candidacy leans on her husband’s name and network rather than a distinct political base of her own. Her backers have rejected both claims as coordinated smear campaigns, and note that the zoning decision that produced her candidacy — ceding the ticket to the Nongov axis of Guma LGA — came only after Samuel Ortom himself was given first right of refusal and declined to run again.

If elected, she would be only the second woman in Benue State’s history to hold a senatorial seat for the state.

The Incumbent: Senator Titus Zam

Senator Titus Tartenger Zam has represented Zone B in the National Assembly since 2023, when he defeated Samuel Ortom himself in the general election, 143,151 votes to 106,882 — a result Ortom initially contested and later withdrew his petition against. Zam previously served under Ortom in state government before that contest.

In office, Zam chairs the Senate Committee on Rules and Business and the Committee on the North Central Development Commission, and serves as vice chairman on agricultural colleges and institutions — giving him a hand in setting the Senate’s own legislative agenda. He has sponsored bills and motions addressing open grazing and ranching, aimed at the same farmer-herder conflict that has long strained Benue’s rural communities, along with efforts toward a National Animal Identification and traceability framework. Supporters point to this committee influence and legislative record as reasons to keep him in place.

The complication for Zam is his own party. In the May 2026 APC primary, he placed last among the major contenders, polling just 2,557–2,763 votes (reports vary slightly) against Benjamin Aber’s roughly 93,400 — a landslide defeat inside his own party. He only returned to the ticket after APC’s National Working Committee upheld his appeal and reversed the primary result, a decision that has drawn criticism from aggrieved aspirants within the party itself. Critics have also pointed to what they describe as underwhelming delivery of federal projects to the district during his term. His allies counter that his standing with national party leadership — he’s described as a close ally of the Senate President and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation — and his committee positions give him more leverage to deliver for Zone B in a second term than a newcomer would have.

The Third Contender: Labour Party

The race isn’t only a two-way fight. Dave Awunah (also reported as Awuna) has emerged as a prominent aspirant for the Labour Party in Zone B, positioning the contest as a genuine three-way race in a district where LP has shown real strength before — Awunah’s own vote total in the APC primary logjam years earlier (over 21,000 votes as a challenger) suggests he carries a real base independent of the two bigger parties. Labour Party framing around his candidacy has emphasized a break from the PDP-APC dominance that has defined Zone B politics for years.

Where It Stands

As of mid-2026, Ortom holds the PDP ticket, Zam has reclaimed the APC ticket after a contested internal appeal, and Awunah is positioning for Labour Party — setting up a three-cornered contest for a seat that has already changed party hands twice in the past two cycles. Whatever the outcome, Zone B’s voters will be choosing between a record built inside government as first lady, a record built inside the Senate as a sitting lawmaker with real committee influence, and a third option betting that neither of the two dominant parties has fully earned another term.