The Federal High Court sitting in Gombe has nullified the May 16, 2026 primary election conducted by the All Progressives Congress for the Balanga/Billiri Federal Constituency of Gombe State, holding that the exercise failed to comply with the mandatory requirements of the Electoral Act 2026.
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The court also ordered the APC to conduct a fresh primary election for the constituency and barred Hon. Ali Isa J.C., who emerged from the invalidated exercise, from participating in the rerun.
Justice Vera Ibrahim, who delivered the judgment, found that Ali’s name was not contained in the APC membership register submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission within the period prescribed by law.
The court’s decision turned principally on compliance with Section 77 of the Electoral Act 2026, which regulates political parties’ membership registers and their use in congresses, conventions and primary elections.
According to the court, the central question was not merely whether Ali could generally describe himself as a member of the APC, but whether his name appeared in the legally relevant membership register submitted by the party to INEC within the statutory timeframe before the primary.
Evidence before the court indicated that Ali joined the APC only 16 days before the May 16 primary, whereas the applicable statutory regime requires a party’s membership register to be submitted to INEC at least 21 days before the relevant congress, convention or primary.
Justice Ibrahim held that neither the APC nor INEC produced sufficient evidence establishing that Ali’s name appeared in the membership register submitted within the prescribed period.
The court consequently found that the statutory requirement had not been satisfied and set aside the primary that produced him.
The judgment comes against the background of a major Supreme Court decision delivered days earlier on provisions of the Electoral Act governing party membership registers and nomination procedures.
On September 24, a seven-member panel of the Supreme Court led by Justice Adamu Jauro unanimously restored Sections 77(5), 77(6), 77(7) and 84(2) of the Electoral Act 2026, which had earlier been struck down by the Court of Appeal.
The apex court held that the provisions were not inconsistent with the 1999 Constitution and set aside the Court of Appeal judgment that had declared them unconstitutional.
Section 77(5), as restored by the Supreme Court, provides for the use of a political party’s membership register submitted to INEC within the prescribed period in relation to participation in party primaries, while Sections 77(6) and (7) impose further obligations concerning the register and consequences for non-compliance.
In the Gombe case, Justice Ibrahim relied on the recent Supreme Court position in distinguishing an ordinary internal dispute about who is or is not a member of a political party from a judicially examinable question of whether a party complied with an express statutory requirement concerning the register submitted to INEC.
The judge held, in effect, that while the courts ordinarily exercise caution in interfering with purely internal questions of party membership, compliance with statutory provisions governing how parties prepare, submit and use their membership registers is a different issue and may be examined by the court.
The court therefore nullified the May 16 exercise, directed the APC to conduct another primary in conformity with the law and excluded Ali from participating in the fresh exercise.
Ali, a two-term member of the House of Representatives for Balanga/Billiri Federal Constituency, had emerged as the APC candidate during the controversial May 16 primary.
At the time, reports said he emerged after weeks of consultations and an earlier attempt by party stakeholders to produce candidates by consensus. Following disagreements among aspirants, however, the Gombe APC moved to direct primaries.
The May 16 exercise itself generated protests from some party members and aspirants.
One of the aggrieved aspirants, Alfred John Attajiri, publicly alleged at the time that no proper voting exercise took place across the Balanga and Billiri wards before results were announced, describing what occurred as an “invisible election.” Those were Attajiri’s allegations at the time and are distinct from the membership-register ground on which Justice Ibrahim has now nullified the primary.
Ali had previously contested the Balanga/Billiri House of Representatives seat on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party. INEC’s final candidate list for the 2023 National Assembly election listed Isa Ali J.C. as the PDP candidate for Balanga/Billiri.
Following the latest judgment, the APC must now return to the process of selecting a candidate for the constituency, subject to the judgment and any appellate steps that may be taken by the affected parties.
Speaking after the judgment, counsel to the plaintiff, Ibrahim Aliyu, said the decision underscored the obligation of political parties to comply with the Electoral Act when conducting their internal nomination exercises.
According to him, the statutory requirements governing party primaries cannot simply be disregarded while parties proceed to nominate candidates for general elections.
The judgment adds another layer to the legal disputes surrounding the 2027 nomination process in Gombe State.
Only days earlier, a different judge of the Federal High Court in Gombe nullified the PDP governorship primary that produced former Minister of Communications and Digital Economy Isa Pantami and ordered the party to conduct a fresh exercise. That case concerned the validity of the process used to nominate the PDP governorship candidate and is separate from the Balanga/Billiri dispute.
For the Balanga/Billiri constituency, however, Justice Ibrahim’s order means the May 16 APC primary no longer stands at the Federal High Court level, while Ali has been barred by the judgment from participating in the court-ordered fresh primary.
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