Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) will be excluded from fielding a candidate in the forthcoming governorship election in Ekiti State, owing to the crisis in the country’s main opposition party.

In what appears reflective of the calamity that might befall the party in 2027, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) released the list of candidates for the June 20, 2026, governorship election in Ekiti state without the former ruling party on the ballot.

The list on the noticeboard of INEC’s headquarters in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital, on Monday, contained names of only 12 candidates and their running mates of the approved political parties, with that of Wole Oluyede, the PDP candidate, conspicuously missing.

They include: Opeyemi Falegan (Accord Party), Akande Oluwasegun (African Action Congress), Ayodeji Ojo (Action Democratic Party), Oluwadare Bejide (African Democratic Congress), Biodun Oyebanji (All Progressives Congress), and Bidemi Awogbemi (Action People’s Party).

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Others are Joseph Anifowose (Allied People’s Movement), Oyebanji Olajuyin (Labour Party), Blessing Abegunde (New Nigeria People Party), Olaniyi Ayodele (People’s Redemption Party), Owoola Daramola (Young Progressive Party), and Victor Adetunji (Zenith Labour Party).

Oluyede, a medical expert, was elected the PDP gubernatorial candidate in November, with 279 votes to defeat Funso Ayeni, his closest challenger, who received 239, through a process conducted by the PDP national working committee (NWC) backed by Seyi Makinde, governor of Oyo.

The development came on the heels of last week’s pronouncement by the electoral body, rejecting the request of the Kabiru Turaki camp hosting the likes of Makinde and Bala Mohammed, Governor of Bauchi State for recognition, citing legal constraints.

The Turaki camp, which held a national convention in November, had been contending with the group led by Nyesom Wike, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), with Samuel Anyanwu, embattled National Secretary of the party, leading to a near show-down at the PDP National Secretariat in Abuja, recently.

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Nothing short of immediate sanctions against President Bola Tinubu by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), for breaching the law rolling out hundreds of campaign vehicles ahead of the 2027 presidential elections, will satisfy the demands of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), which is crying blue murder.

It is worse that the President carried out the condemnable action at times like now in Nigeria when citizens are facing serious security crises, the party lamented, describing the move as an attempt at diverting attention from Nigeria’s worsening situation by prematurely kicking off his re-election bid under the guise of political mobilisation.

Stressing that it was not only ill-timed but undermined the integrity of the security emergency that the President himself declared, the ADC conveyed its strong resentment in a statement by Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, its spokesman, who maintained that the distribution of the branded vehicles to political mobilisers operating under the ‘Renewed Hope Ambassadors’ banner nationwide, warning that apart from overreaching INEC’s campaign timetable, it also set a troubling precedent for governance during an emergency.

“The African Democratic Congress (ADC) is deeply appalled by reports that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has distributed fleets of Hilux trucks, Land Cruisers, and Hummer buses to political agents across the country, thereby effectively kick-starting his 2027 re-election bid.

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“While ordinary citizens are being kidnapped, displaced, and killed, the President is handing out branded vehicles and building a partisan mobilisation structure,” Abdullahi noted. Genuine national emergency requires extraordinary discipline from leadership, not symbolic gestures or business-as-usual governance.

“What we have seen under President Tinubu is that, apart from the declaration itself and a few symbolic gestures, nothing of substance has changed; no new safety measures, no heightened security alertness or presence, nothing. Tinubu has become the first elected Nigerian President to declare a national security emergency while beginning a re-election drive at the same time. INEC must move beyond observation and take concrete steps to address what it described as clear violations of electoral regulations.

“These actions are in clear violation of electoral regulations, and we expect INEC to act decisively to protect the integrity of the process. A President cannot serve as the head of a nation in crisis and as an active political candidate simultaneously.

“Such dual roles send the wrong signals at a time when the country needs stability and clarity of purpose. Leadership in times of crisis demands focus, sacrifice, and moral clarity. Lavish convoys and early campaigns are not the answers to national trauma,” the party insisted. The President must recommit fully to tackling insecurity or acknowledge that political ambition is now overshadowing governance.”

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Peter Obi, candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 presidential elections, is insisting that the issue of power-sharing in the party must be settled first, before he would take the full plunge into the coalition of the African Democratic Congress (ADC).

Stating that the coalition was yet to make the required headway, the former governor of Anambra State, who indicated that it was not too late as the matter could be settled in a jiffy, maintained that the issue of zoning and the rotation of key offices, remained key to any coalition arrangement.

Obi, believed by his supporters to have won the 2023 election, but was denied by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), is said to have insisted among his friends and supporters that he was not keen on contesting the ADC ticket with Atiku Abubakar, former Vice President with whom he ran the 2019 edition under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Few weeks before the PDP primaries in 2022, the former governor had quit the party, over what he explained was influence of money, maintaining it was better for him to do the right thing and fail rather than do the opposite and succeed and thereafter pitched his tent with the LP, where he put up a rare stellar performance, beating his opponents in Lagos and Abuja to the extent that none of them secured 25 per cent in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

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Declaring his current stand during a parley with Advocacy for Good Governance, a political platform on Wednesday, Obi said the coalition must tidy up loose ends and agree on a shared direction for the country.

His words: “Today, I’m a member of the Labour Party, okay, and I subscribe to the coalition — the ADC coalition — for the 2027 election and I believe in it. But as much as I believe in it, I need to know the fundamentals that we all agree to respect. But in all this, there are still some fine lines that we need to respect, where things must be done properly, where we must sit down and talk about where we’re driving the country to.

“Today, we have what we can say are unsigned agreements about the presidency, unsigned agreements about rotation of offices. Which is why if you say this person will come from here and this person will come from there, all those things need to be organised.

“The reason why it needs to be organised is: if you don’t do it, you create confusion for the future. I respect all those who are leaders there; of course, our chairman, David Mark, is one of those people I respect. I believe he has the political sagacity to lead the party and so many others we have there; people like my own leader, Atiku — someone I have all my respect for, who I believe believes in the good of Nigeria, and wants the best for Nigeria and all that. I’m not desperate to be president of Nigeria, I’m desperate to see Nigeria work.”

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