The final list of governorship candidates for Rivers State was not available alongside those of other states on the website of the Independent National Electoral Commission on Saturday, raising questions about the status of the document ahead of the February 6, 2027 election.
The reported absence of the Rivers list came as INEC published final candidate lists for the 2027 governorship elections, including those for Ogun and Gombe states, where the Peoples Democratic Party was conspicuously missing.
A review of the commission’s website, as reported by TheCable on Saturday, showed that the final list for Rivers had not been made available alongside the other state lists. It was not immediately clear whether the document had yet to be uploaded or whether INEC intended to publish it separately.
The Rivers development has attracted attention amid controversy surrounding the candidacy of the All Progressives Congress governorship flagbearer, Kingsley Chinda, following his defection from the PDP to the APC before participating in the latter party’s primary.
Questions have been raised over the validity of his nomination, particularly in relation to the legal requirements governing party membership and participation in primaries.
The issue comes against the backdrop of a September 24 Supreme Court judgment on statutory provisions regulating political parties’ membership registers and the nomination of candidates.
The judgment has become a central issue in the 2027 election process, with attention focused on whether candidates and parties complied with the applicable requirements before conducting their primaries.
In Ogun and Gombe states, INEC’s final lists omitted the reported PDP governorship candidates, Ladi Adebutu and Isa Ali Pantami, respectively, alongside their running mates.
The Ogun list contains 13 governorship candidates, while the Gombe list has 16. Neither includes a PDP candidate.
Pantami had recently won a fresh PDP governorship primary in Gombe following a court order for a rerun. Adebutu, meanwhile, had been the party’s reported candidate in Ogun, where questions had emerged over his membership-registration status.
The omissions have intensified scrutiny of the commission’s final lists and the circumstances surrounding the nomination of candidates for the 2027 polls.
While reports published on Saturday by Peoples Gazette said INEC cited the Supreme Court judgment in connection with the omissions of Adebutu and Pantami, the published lists did not provide detailed explanations for the absence of the candidates and their running mates.
The commission’s final lists are expected to provide the official particulars of candidates contesting the governorship elections, including their names, political parties, running mates, ages, genders and qualifications.
The absence of the Rivers document from the website, however, left uncertainty over when the list would become available and whether any issues relating to the state’s nominations had affected its publication.
The governorship elections are scheduled for February 6, 2027, across 28 states, while State House of Assembly elections will also be held nationwide.
