October 4, (THEWILL) – Political Parties, members and many candidates have become jittery following the September 28 Supreme Court ruling that nullified an Appeal Court judgment on the validity of political party membership and the role of direct primary and consensus in determining the emergence of candidates for the 2027 general election.
Tension has heightened in the parties and among many of the candidates likely to be affected by the apex court ruling since the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, which won the suit, said it would act after it has received and studied the Certified True Copy (CTC) of the ruling.
THEWILL gathered that the Commission, which had been soft with political parties amid the appellate court ruling that struck down the now-revived sections 77(5), 77(6), 77(7) and 84(2) of the Electoral Act 2026, saying that the provisions are inconsistent with the 1999 Constitution, is now prepared to assert its authority and act in strict compliance with the new and final judgement by the apex court.
THE JUDGEMENT
A panel of the Appeal Court, led by Justice Balkisu Bello Aliu, on July 16, declared sections 77(5), (6), (7) and 84(2) of the Electoral Act unconstitutional, in a suit brought before it by Zenith Labour Party, ZNP.
Reading the lead judgement, Justice Eberechi Wike said the sections were unconstitutional, saying the Electoral Act cannot restrict the powers of the political parties to manage their affairs as enshrined in sections 222 and 223 of the 1999 Constitution. The court held that “the constitution already provides the conditions for qualification and disqualification of political parties and candidates, and that the National Assembly could not impose additional restrictions that conflict with constitutional powers granted to political parties.”
Dissatisfied with the ruling, INEC approached the Supreme Court. The apex court, in a unanimous decision read by Justice Adamu Jauro, set aside the Appeal Court judgement, saying that the Act is not in conflict with the Constitution. In one word, they restored INEC’s power in alignment with the sections in the Act.
According to the Supreme Court: Section 77(5) of the Electoral Act 2026 provides that only members whose names are contained in a political party’s membership register, submitted to INEC, at least 21 days before a primary, congress or convention is held, can participate in the exercise.
Section 77(6) states that a party cannot use any membership register other than the one submitted to the electoral commission for its primaries, congresses, and conventions. Under section 77(7), a party that fails to submit its membership register within the stipulated period cannot field a candidate for the election.
Section 84(2) stipulates that political parties shall nominate candidates for elective positions through direct primaries or consensus.
CANDIDATES BELIEVED TO BE AFFECTED
Candidates feared caught by the new law are mostly those who defected from their political parties after losing their slot in the party. Prominent among them are people like a Former Deputy President of the Senate, Mr Ovie Omo-Agege, who defected to the Nigeria Democratic Congress, NDC, after losing his aspiration on the platform of the All Progressives Congress, APC; former Cross Rivers State governor, Donald Duke, who is currently the presidential candidate of the Peoples Redemption Party, PRP; former Inspector- General of Police, Abubakar Adamu, who lost an APC primary election and defected to the Social Democratic Party, where he emerged as a governorship candidate, and Hon. Kingsley Chinda, an APC governorship candidate in Rivers State, who was the Peoples Democratic Party’s Minority Leader in the House of Representatives up until April 2026 before crossing to the APC, where he registered, picked up a nomination form and passed the party’s screening ahead of incumbent Governor Siminalayi Fubara.
Others are former Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, PDP governorship candidate in Gombe State who lost the APC primary, crossed over to the PDP and emerged its candidate by voice vote amid stiff opposition by many of the party’s state officials and members; ex- Speaker of Delta Assembly, Hon Victor Ochei, who lost out in the APC primary, resigned from the party in May and then defected to the NDC where he picked up the ticket for Delta North Senatorial District. The presidential candidate of the NDC, Peter Obi, who defected from the ADC alongside his deputy, Dr. Rabiu Kwankwaso on May 4, six days before the May 10 INEC deadline for the submission of the digital version of the party membership register, has also come under the same question of qualification.
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COURT ACTIONS AND LITIGATIONS
Even before INEC wields the big stick, the courts have begun to apply the Supreme Court ruling just as litigants and aggrieved aspirants seek judicial redress. From Gombe to Lagos, Rivers to Plateau, a flurry of apex court-inspired litigations have surfaced. In Gombe, for example, a Federal High Court on September 30, two days after the apex court ruling, nullified the All Progressives Congress (APC) primary election held on 16 May for the Balanga/Billiri Federal Constituency.
Justice Vera Ibrahim ruled that the exercise failed to comply with Section 77 of the Electoral Act, which requires political parties to submit their membership registers to INEC at least 21 days before the conduct of party primaries. Mr Ali was said to have joined the APC 16 days before the primary. The court’s decision was based on Section 77 of the Electoral Act, According to the court, the issue before it was not simply whether Mr Ali was a member of the APC, but whether the party complied with the statutory requirement to submit its membership register.
On October 1, it was the turn of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, NDC, whose governorship candidate, Jonathan Akuns, was barred from presenting himself as a governorship candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) in the 2027 general election. Similarly, in Lagos State, the court has postponed to October 6 a suit involving Naheem Balogun challenging the victory of the party’s governorship candidate, Funso Doherty, claiming that he, Balogun , won the primary and therefore, is the rightful candidate of the party.
A party chieftain in Lagos State, March Oyinki, told THEWILL that there are several unresolved intra-party court cases by many contestants in the party for the governorship, senatorial, House of Representatives and the State Assemblies race in the recent primary elections across the country, who claimed to have won the party’s primaries but were denied the ticket. The non-formation of the party’s presidential campaign council, PCC, is directly related to the poor showings by the party’s candidates in the ongoing campaigns. The party’s delay in forming the PCC could also be linked to the OK Movement’s recent attempt to form its own Presidential Campaign Council, which the party’s national leader, Sen. Seriake Dickson, condemned in a press interview.
In Rivers State, a Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, has adjourned until November 4, 2026, for a hearing in a suit challenging the nomination of the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, Kingsley Chinda, as the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State for the 2027 general election.
The suit, marked FHC/PH/CS/3/2026, was instituted by Samuel Amatonjie against the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Chinda, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the APC, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Clerk to the National Assembly. The case centres on whether Chinda validly defected from the PDP to the APC in accordance with the provisions of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, before taking part in the APC governorship screening and primary that produced him as the party’s candidate.
According to him, the central issue before the court is whether Chinda’s defection from the PDP to the APC had been completed by May 9, 2026, when he was screened for the APC governorship primary, and May 21, 2026, when he emerged as the party’s governorship candidate. Amatonjie argued that Chinda’s resignation and defection letter was formally read on the floor of the House of Representatives by the Speaker on June 2, 2026, after both the screening and primary had taken place. He wants the court to determine whether Chinda was constitutionally entitled to participate in the APC screening and primary before the formal reading of his defection and resignation letter.
Prior to the apex court ruling, a Federal High Court sitting in Gombe and presided over by Justice Amina Aliyu Mohammed nullified the emergence of Pantami as PDP governorship candidate and directed the party to conduct a fresh governorship primary within 30 days. Justice Mohammed held that the poll that produced Pantami did not comply with the party’s laid-down procedures and applicable electoral laws.
On Duke, Justice Mohammed Umar of the Federal High Court in Abuja on September 30, 2026, dismissed the suit instituted against the PRP presidential candidate, saying it was statute-barred, having been filed outside the period prescribed for pre-election matters under section 285 of the Constitution. But the challenger, Dr. Yakubu Mohammed Kingsley, vowed to appeal the ruling, saying that the 14-day period should have started on June 6, 2026, when the party’s primary appeal committee conveyed its decision to him. He said the court’s decision, which was scheduled for November 4, came to him as a surprise. He contends that Duke was not a registered member of the party when it submitted its register to INEC on May 4, 2026 and also failed to physically appear for screening at the party’s secretariat before emerging its candidate, though Justice Umar maintained that membership of a political party was an internal affair of parties.
EXPERT ANALYSES
Legal experts are divided on the deep implications of the apex court ruling for candidates across political parties, especially those who relied on the Appeal Court ruling to pursue their political ambition for the 2027 general election.
While some of the learned counsels said that the Supreme Court ruling was not directed to any particular candidate and reserved their final opinion after the publication of the Certified True Copy, CTC, of the judgement, others say the judgement has made an indirect pronouncement on the fate of the post -Appeal Court party candidates.
Dr Liborous Oshioma, a constitutional lawyer, told THEWILL frontally that the apex court ruling has indirectly disqualified the APC governorship candidates in Rivers State, Chinda, Senatorial candidates of NDC in Delta State, Omo- Agege, Delta Central, Ochei, Delta North, Pantami PDP governorship candidate and others who relied on the Appeal Court ruling for their actions.
He said, “The question that should be asked is not when the person moved from one party to another, but when the party submitted its register to INEC. Section 77 (5) of the Electoral Act 2026 says the submission must be done at least 21 days before the congress, primary or merger. When the Court of Appeal struck down the disputed sections of the Act, many people joined parties other than their own. So, they are bound by the court decision.”
He argued that the idea of retroactive judgement and replacement does not arise.
“The law was already in place before the Supreme Court judgement. It is applied on the day it was made, not when it was interpreted. Replacement of a candidate, according to the Act, refers to a situation when a candidate dies or withdraws voluntarily. Now, a party has submitted its register within 21 days and conducted its primary. Are you going to ask the party to re-submit its register for another primary? Of course, the answer is no,” he said, adding: “INEC does not need to go to court for interpretation. Its powers have been restored. All it needs to do now is to look at the register and remove any names that were added during the Appeal Court case.”
Explaining further, Dr Oshioma used the cases involving Chinda and Omo-Agege as examples. According to him, APC wrote INEC on April 20, 2026, to notify the Commission of its planned primary, scheduled for May 15 and 23 in accordance with the 21 -day notice. Chinda, he continued, defected from the PDP to APC on April 23, according to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, who read the former Minority Leaders’ defection letter on June 2, 2026 during plenary.
“Within that period, April 23 and June 2, the House sat four times, April 28 and 29 and May 5 and 7, before it broke for recess for members to attend their party primaries. During those four sittings, the Speaker did not read Chinda’s defection letter. But he appeared for the party’s governorship screening exercise on May 21 and got his ticket. Now, recall that in the case involving the defection of Rivers Assembly members, the Supreme Court ruled that since they did not make their defection public, they remained members of the PDP. The same judgement applies to Chinda. In my estimation, Chinda is not eligible to contest according to the Supreme Court judgement,” he said.
For Omo-Agege, Oshioma said that since the ex- Deputy- President of the Senate defected from APC to NDC on May 22 and was on May 22 granted a waiver by his new party, his name may not have been in the party register submitted by the May 10 deadline set by INEC, as confirmed by the Supreme Court ruling. Finally, he contended that the parties will not field candidates for those seats affected by the Supreme Court’s judgement.
“This situation is not new. Recall that APC had no governorship candidate in Zamfara in 2015 and in Bayelsa State in 2019, where the election was nullified due to irregularities in the certificate of the Deputy Governor-elect. In the Zamfara case, the party failed to conduct a valid primary election.”
In a lengthy intervention, Dr Monday Ubani, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, said the matter is not as straightforward as it seems. According to him, the practical consequence is that political parties are once again required to comply with the statutory requirements relating to their membership registers and the statutory methods of nominating candidates. But the judgment raises a further and important question.
He asks what happens to candidates who have already been nominated and published by INEC, particularly where an aspirant seeks to challenge their nomination on the basis of the provisions now restored by the Supreme Court? That question requires a careful distinction between the validity of the law and the validity of an individual candidate’s nomination.
He said that the restoration of Sections 77 and 84 does not amount to automatic disqualification of candidates. “For emphasis, Section 77(5) provides that only persons whose names appear in the party’s membership register are eligible to vote or be voted for at party primaries, congresses and conventions.
“Section 77(6) requires the party to use the register submitted to INEC, while Section 77(7) provides that a party which fails to submit its register within the prescribed period is not eligible to field a candidate.
“Section 84(2), meanwhile, prescribes direct primaries or consensus as the methods for nomination of candidates. The Supreme Court has now restored the legal validity of those provisions. But there is a fundamental distinction between saying the statutory requirement is valid and saying a particular candidate has consequently been disqualified. The Supreme Court did not, by the ZLP judgment, make a blanket order disqualifying candidates who were not parties to that litigation. This is where the constitutional principle of fair hearing under Section 36 of the 1999 Constitution becomes important. A candidate whose nomination is being attacked must be allowed to be heard before an order affecting his or her legal rights is made. The validity of Sections 77 and 84 cannot, by itself, amount to a judicial determination that every candidate whose nomination is alleged to have been conducted in breach of those provisions is automatically disqualified. In other words, the Supreme Court has restored the law; it has not adjudicated the individual facts of every nomination conducted under that law.”
Reacting on his Facebook page, Omo-Agege said he is qualified to run as NDC candidate, regardless of the apex court ruling. According to his Special Adviser on Strategy and Communications, Godwin Anaughe, “Omo-Agege is a duly registered member of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), his name is contained in the party’s membership register submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) before May 10, 2026, and INEC’s final list contains his name as the NDC candidate for Delta Central. The distinction is straightforward: the Court ruled on the relevant provisions of the Electoral Act; it did not issue a candidate-specific ruling against Omo-Agege. Turning that judgment into an announcement that Omo-Agege is out of the race is therefore political propaganda, not a statement of what the Court decided.”
National Publicity Secretary of the NDC, Osa Director, told THEWILL that Obi and his deputy, Kwankwaso, are not affected by the Supreme Court ruling. He said the party’s primary was held on May 29, 2026 and so the party’s presidential candidate and his deputy will not be affected. Pressed that Obi and Kwankwaso joined the party on May 4, six days before the May 10 deadline for the submission of the digital register to INEC, he said, “It is not the date to submit that matters. What is relevant is 21 days before the primary election. That is what the relevant sections of the Act say.”
He referred to Section 77 (4) of the Act on the 21-day rule, which says: “The membership register must be made available to INEC not later than 21 days before the date fixed for the party’s primaries, congresses or convention.”
Amos Esele is the Editor of THEWILL Newspaper. He has over two decades of experience on the job.
