The candidates, who were expected to contest in Gombe and Ogun states, respectively, were conspicuously absent from the list released on October 10. INEC, however, did not state the reason for their exclusion.
The omission is believed to be linked to the Supreme Court judgment delivered on September 24, which ruled that only aspirants whose names appeared on a party’s membership register submitted to INEC before the conduct of its governorship primaries could be recognised as candidates.
The ruling invalidated the candidacies of aspirants who joined political parties after the submission of their membership registers to the electoral commission ahead of the primaries.
Meanwhile, INEC has cleared Kingsley Chinda to contest in the 2027 governorship election in Rivers State.
Chinda, a close ally of the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, was listed as number five among the 19 candidates published by the electoral commission.
The former Minority Leader of the House of Representatives was previously a member of the PDP before defecting to the All Progressives Congress (APC) shortly before the party’s governorship primaries in Rivers State.
His candidacy had attracted uncertainty following the Supreme Court’s decision to reinstate Sections 77(5), (6) and (7), as well as Section 84(2) of the Electoral Act 2026. The provisions bar political parties from presenting candidates whose names were not included in the membership registers submitted to INEC within the stipulated period.
