Media reports, particularly Daily Trust of Tuesday, 7 October 2026, raised questions about the fate of Ali Isa Pantami, Mohammed Nami and Mohammed Adamu following the Supreme Court judgment on party membership registers and candidate selection. Kingsley Chinda, the APC governorship candidate in Rivers State, also attracted attention. However, subsequent reports indicated that INEC included Adamu, Nami and Chinda on its lists but omitted Pantami from the Gombe governorship list.
Why were these politicians initially expected to face similar problems, yet their outcomes differed?
The answer lies in three distinct questions: When did each politician become a party member? Was the politician eligible to participate in the primary that produced the candidate? And what circumstances informed INEC’s final decision?
On 24 September 2026, the Supreme Court restored provisions of the Electoral Act 2026 concerning party membership registers and candidate selection, overturning an earlier Court of Appeal decision that had declared them unconstitutional. Sections 77(5), 77(6), 77(7) and 84(2) are particularly relevant. In simple terms, the provisions regulate the submission of party membership registers and participation in party primaries, congresses and conventions.
Consequently, joining a party does not automatically establish eligibility to participate in its primary. The relevant questions include whether the politician’s name appeared on the applicable register submitted to INEC and whether the party complied with the legal requirements.
Mohammed Adamu’s case attracted attention because the former Inspector-General of Police emerged as a replacement for the original SDP governorship candidate in Nasarawa State after Adamu Angba withdrew. Questions arose about whether the replacement complied with the applicable membership and nomination rules.
His situation, however, cannot automatically be equated with Pantami’s. Replacing a candidate who withdraws raises questions about the legal basis and procedure for substitution, whereas Pantami’s case involved a primary that had already been challenged in court. Adamu’s inclusion on INEC’s list establishes that the commission accepted his candidacy at that stage; it does not necessarily mean every possible legal challenge was conclusively resolved.
Mohammed Nami’s case similarly generated controversy. Having previously been associated with the APC as a senatorial aspirant, he eventually emerged as the PDP governorship candidate in Niger State following the withdrawal of the party’s earlier candidate.
Critics questioned whether his PDP membership and subsequent nomination complied with the restored provisions. Section 33 of the Electoral Act was also cited in arguments concerning replacement following withdrawal or death.
Nevertheless, Nami’s circumstances differed procedurally from Pantami’s. His emergence involved replacing an earlier candidate, while Pantami’s involved an initial nomination that was nullified by a court, followed by a court-ordered fresh primary. These distinctions matter when assessing the legality of their respective nominations.
Pantami’s case involved an additional complication: an existing court judgment. According to reports, he withdrew from the APC governorship primary on 19 May 2026, resigned from the party and joined the PDP. The deadline for submitting the PDP membership register was reportedly 10 May.
This raised questions about whether his name appeared on the relevant register and whether he was eligible to participate in the PDP primary. Although Pantami subsequently won a fresh primary on 29 September, that victory did not automatically resolve the membership-register controversy.
The crucial question is not simply how long he had belonged to the PDP by the date of the fresh primary. It is whether he satisfied the applicable legal requirements for participating in that particular exercise.
More importantly, the Federal High Court in Gombe had already nullified his initial nomination and ordered a fresh primary. His case therefore involved both a membership controversy and a judicially challenged nomination process. This is a significant distinction from the reported circumstances surrounding Adamu and Nami.
The case of Kingsley Chinda in Rivers State further illustrates why dates must be examined carefully. Reports indicated that he registered with the APC on 27 April, before the party’s 21 May primary, although his formal declaration on the floor of the House was announced on 2 June. The Rivers APC maintained that his earlier registration supported his eligibility. His inclusion on INEC’s list demonstrates why the date of a public declaration should not automatically be treated as the date of party registration.
Does INEC’s final list mean that Adamu and Nami have been conclusively cleared by the courts while Pantami has been finally disqualified? Not necessarily. Inclusion on an electoral list is an administrative decision, not automatically a judicial determination that a nomination is beyond challenge. Similarly, Pantami’s omission does not, by itself, establish that every question concerning his eligibility has been finally settled.
The Supreme Court judgment should therefore not be interpreted as automatically disqualifying every politician who defected after a membership-register deadline. Each case requires examination of the relevant membership records, registration dates, primary elections, substitution procedures and court orders.
Other candidates were reportedly omitted, including Ladi Adebutu in Ogun State, amid allegations concerning the PDP membership register, which the party disputed. Aminu Gwarzo of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) in Kano was also reported missing from the list, although the precise reason was not established in the available reports. It would therefore be premature to assume that all exclusions arose from identical circumstances.
The central lesson is that similar allegations do not necessarily produce identical legal outcomes. The applicable rules may be the same, but the facts and procedural histories may differ.
This brings us to Niger State, where supporters of Mohammed Ndarani, SAN, have celebrated his appearance on INEC’s list as the SDP governorship candidate. Congratulations are certainly appropriate for a respected legal practitioner known to his supporters for service, sacrifice and philanthropy. However, his candidacy raises a political question concerning his relationship with Mohammed Nami.
Following the controversial APC senatorial primary, both men joined others in opposing what they described as imposition, urging the party to address their grievances. Their supporters subsequently viewed them as allies united by a common cause. Nami later moved to the PDP, while Ndarani emerged as the SDP governorship candidate. Photographs of the two together continue to reinforce the perception of a common political identity.
Yet, if both men intend to challenge the ruling APC, how can they effectively pursue that objective while contesting against each other from different parties? Their supporters may see a common grievance as sufficient grounds for continued solidarity, but electoral competition requires more than shared opposition to a common adversary.
This resembles what political scientist Giovanni Sartori described as fragmented opposition and what Mancur Olson’s collective-action theory helps explain: groups with overlapping interests may struggle to coordinate when their individual ambitions compete with their collective objective.
Finally, are Nami and Ndarani genuine allies, political rivals, or simply politicians whose relationship has been exaggerated by their supporters? Their photograph alone cannot answer that question. Their decisions, cooperation and willingness to manage competing ambitions will reveal whether their alliance is substantive or merely symbolic. If their individual candidacies prevent the opposition from presenting a stronger challenge to the APC, their shared history of protest may inadvertently benefit the very party they once opposed.
*Bagudu Mohammed* is the founder of Alternative Perspectives, a widely read commentary platform on social media, and writes a weekly newspaper column published every Monday on the back page of Peoples Daily.
