INEC GIVES PANTAMI, ADEBUTU, GWARZO OCTOBER 24 DEADLINE TO CHALLENGE OMISSION FROM 2027 GOVERNORSHIP LIST

…Says Supreme Court ruling barred defaulting parties from sponsoring candidates

By Peter Salami
The Independent National Electoral Commission has given political parties whose governorship candidates — including Isa Ali Pantami, Oladipupo Adebutu and Aminu Abdussalam Gwarzo — were omitted from the final list for the 2027 elections until October 24 to challenge their exclusion.

The three prominent governorship hopefuls were among candidates affected after the commission applied a September 24 Supreme Court judgment which held that political parties that failed to comply with statutory requirements on the submission of membership registers were ineligible to sponsor candidates.

Pantami, a former Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, is the Peoples Democratic Party’s governorship candidate in Gombe State, while Adebutu is the PDP candidate in Ogun.

Gwarzo, a former Kano State deputy governor, is the governorship candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress in Kano.

Their names were conspicuously missing when INEC published its final lists for the February 6, 2027 governorship elections, triggering protests and demands for clarification from affected parties.

But INEC National Commissioner and Chairman of the Information and Voter Education Committee, Mohammed Kudu Haruna, said on Tuesday that parties which believe their candidates were wrongly excluded still have a statutory window to seek correction.

Under Section 32(2) of the Electoral Act, 2026, affected political parties have 14 days from publication of the final list to notify the commission of candidates they believe were wrongly omitted.
That window closes on October 24.

The provision effectively gives the parties sponsoring Pantami, Adebutu, Gwarzo and other affected candidates an opportunity to approach INEC and establish that their candidates were wrongly excluded.

INEC, however, explained that the omissions themselves resulted from its implementation of the Supreme Court judgment in INEC v. Zenith Labour Party, delivered on September 24.

The case arose after INEC appealed against a Court of Appeal judgment nullifying Sections 77(5)-(7) of the Electoral Act, 2026.

Those provisions require political parties to submit their membership registers as a prerequisite for the conduct of valid party primaries.

The Supreme Court reversed the lower court’s position and upheld the constitutionality of the provisions, declaring them mandatory for all political parties.

The apex court also upheld Item No. 2 of INEC’s Timetable and Schedule of Activities, which required parties to submit their membership registers between April 21 and May 10, 2026.

More significantly for the affected candidates, the Supreme Court held that failure to comply with Sections 77(5)-(7) rendered a defaulting political party ineligible to sponsor candidates for the election.

INEC said it was constitutionally bound to apply that decision when preparing the final governorship list.

Under Section 287(1) of the 1999 Constitution, decisions of the Supreme Court are binding on authorities and persons throughout the federation.

The commission consequently excluded political parties it determined had failed to comply with the membership-register requirements in relation to the fielding of candidates.

The clarification means that the exclusions were not presented by INEC as isolated decisions against Pantami, Adebutu or Gwarzo personally, but as consequences of the commission’s application of the Supreme Court ruling to their sponsoring parties.

The October 24 window could therefore become crucial to the political future of the affected candidates.

Parties that insist they complied with the statutory requirements now have until that date to formally notify INEC and challenge what they consider wrongful omissions.

The controversy does not presently affect the final presidential and National Assembly candidate lists in the same way.

INEC explained that those lists had already been published on September 12 — 13 days before the Supreme Court delivered its judgment on September 24.

The governorship lists, however, were finalised after the apex court ruling, leaving the commission obliged to take the judgment into account.

The Supreme Court decision has consequently emerged as a potentially significant factor in the 2027 governorship contests, particularly in states where major political parties have found their candidates missing from INEC’s final list.

In Ogun and Gombe, the final lists contain no PDP governorship candidate, while Gwarzo and his running mate are absent from the Kano list.

INEC maintained that its decisions were dictated by the Supreme Court judgment and the Electoral Act, assuring Nigerians that it remained committed to transparency, the rule of law, and the credibility of the electoral process.