A lawyer and public affairs commentator, Mr. Liborous Oshoma, has argued that the recent decision of the Supreme Court restoring the membership register and primaries provisions of the Electoral Act 2026 has, by implication, disqualified the All Progressives Congress governorship candidate in Rivers State, Hon. Kingsley Chinda.
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He made the argument in an instalment of his public legal commentary series on his youtube, in which he walked through the decision and its consequences for candidates who changed parties during the nomination period.
He was careful to frame the conclusion as his own reading. “In my own estimation, there is no eligibility or qualification to contest under the APC platform in line with this Supreme Court judgment,” he said. “It is not me saying it. It is the Supreme Court judgment we are interpreting. I have nothing to do with it personally.”
The commentator traced the litigation from the Federal High Court in Abuja, where Justice Mohammed Umar on 5 May dismissed a suit by the Zenith Labour Party challenging the constitutionality of sections 77(5), (6) and (7) and section 84(2) of the Electoral Act 2026.
The party had argued that those provisions were unlawful, that they interfered with the internal administration of political parties, and that they limited the constitutional power of parties to determine membership and nominate candidates.
“Justice Umar said no. You cannot dictate what the Independent National Electoral Commission should do,” the commentator said, explaining that the judge held that the commission has power to regulate political parties and to set the timetable for elections in the country.
The party appealed. On 16 July 2026, the Court of Appeal in Abuja reversed that decision and struck down the provisions, holding that they did not conform with the 1999 Constitution.
He summarised the reasoning of the lead judgment: that sections 221 and 222 of the Constitution recognise political parties as the bodies responsible for sponsoring candidates for election and for managing their own internal affairs; that section 77(6) conferred sweeping power over the internal affairs of parties on the electoral regulator; that section 77(7) deprived parties of their constitutional right to sponsor candidates; and that section 84(2), in prescribing that nomination be by direct primaries or consensus, interfered with how parties conduct their primaries.
“The Constitution speaks about qualification, but it does not speak about how to run for election, or how to conduct primaries,” he said, describing the appellate court’s position.
The commission appealed, and the matter came before the Supreme Court on Thursday, 24 September 2026.
According to the commentator, a seven-member panel presided over by Honourable Justice Adamu Jauro unanimously allowed the appeal and set aside the Court of Appeal’s judgment of 16 July.
“When Justice of the Court of Appeal said they do not have the power to do this, the Supreme Court said no, you have the power,” he said. “The Supreme Court said the membership register and the method of nomination prescribed by the electoral commission are not unconstitutional, and that they do not interfere with the internal affairs of the party.”
The effect, he said, is that the commission now holds the powers conferred on it by sections 77(5), (6) and (7) and section 84(2), “and nobody can take them away.”
The commentator took his audience through the provisions section by section.
Section 77(1) confers corporate personality on a political party registered under the Act. Subsection (2) requires a party to maintain a digital register of members containing the name, gender, date of birth and address of each member, among other particulars. Subsection (3) provides for the issue of a membership card upon registration.
Subsection (4) requires a party to make that register available to the commission not later than 21 days before the date on which it is eligible to conduct its primaries.
“Subsection (5) says only registered members are eligible to vote. So if your name is not on the register, you cannot vote,” he said.
Subsection (6) provides that no political party shall use any register other than the one submitted to the commission for its primaries, congress or convention. Subsection (7) provides that a party which fails to submit its membership register within the 21 days prescribed in subsection (4) shall not be eligible to nominate any candidate for election.
On the nomination provisions, he explained that section 84(1) requires parties seeking to nominate candidates to hold primaries, which the commission shall monitor, while section 84(2) prescribes that the procedure shall be either direct primaries or consensus.
“With section 84(2) restored, it is now only direct primaries and consensus,” he said. “Any party that conducts anything else, sorry for you. All the names you send will be rejected.”
Setting out the practical consequences, the commentator listed what the decision permits the commission to do.
Only members whose names appear in the register submitted to the commission may vote at a primary, and the register must be submitted at least 21 days before the primary, a requirement he described as mandatory.
The commission may reject a party’s primaries where, on monitoring them, it finds that the names of those voting are not in the register submitted. It may reject candidates where the party failed to submit its register within the 21 days. It may verify the register at congresses and primaries.
“If a party submits its register and then conducts primaries with people whose names were not on it, the primaries may be treated as void,” he said.
He raised, without answering, a practical question about enforcement: “How will the commission know? Will it count the names in that register?”
Turning to the candidate, the commentator set out a sequence of dates.
The APC formally notified the commission of its plan to conduct primaries and submitted its official timetable on 20 April 2026. “Keep that date. 20 April,” he said.
The candidate, then Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, wrote his defection letter on 23 April 2026. The defection was announced on the floor of the House on 2 June 2026 by the Speaker, Hon. Tajudeen Abbas, who said the letter had been written on 23 April but that he had not been able to read it because of the parliamentary recess.
The commentator noted that the House sat on 28 April, 29 April, 5 May and 7 May before adjourning on 7 May for party primaries, resuming on 2 June, and that no announcement was made on any of those days.
The APC governorship primaries in Rivers State were held on Thursday, 21 May 2026.
“This means, according to the Supreme Court’s rule, that at the time he ran in the primaries he had not joined the APC at all,” he said.
He relied on an earlier holding of the Supreme Court concerning members of the House from Rivers State whose defection letters were not read, and who were held not to have defected at that time. “On that interpretation, by 21 May he was not a member of the APC at all. And yet he became the party’s candidate.”
His conclusion rested on the register rather than on the defection alone. “Whether it was 23 April 2026 as stated in the letter, or 2 June when they read the letter, the fact is that there is no official record of the name. When they sent it to the commission on 20 April, when the party announced its planned primaries and sent its official timetable, in my own estimation, there is no eligibility or qualification to contest under the APC platform in line with this Supreme Court judgment.”
The commentator anticipated the argument that the register requirement applies only to primaries and not to a consensus nomination.
“Some people argue that the register requirement does not apply, that you only apply for the primaries and not for consensus,” he said. “The commission argues that the register provision says you must submit the register, and that it applies to all, whether consensus or primaries.”
“So the register is now a precondition for any nomination, including consensus. This Supreme Court decision, in restoring section 77, strengthens their position. Even with consensus, you must give us a register, and your name must be in the register, in line with subsection (5) of that section.”
He said the analysis is not confined to one candidate, citing the case of a senator who, he said, left the APC in May after its primaries and was subsequently offered a senatorial ticket by another party.
“The question now is, was my name in the register of members at the time I applied to the party, and at the time the application went to the commission, when the primaries would not be held 21 days after that date? Under section 77(4) and (5), your name must be registered,” he said.
He said the same question would arise for others who moved between parties during the nomination window, and that the answer in each case turns on the register rather than on the politics.
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