Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has cleared former Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Ali Pantami, and former Kano State Deputy Governor, Abdulsalam Gwarzo, to contest the 2027 governorship elections.
Gatekeepers News reports that however, the commission rejected a petition by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate in Ogun State, Ladi Adebutu, seeking a review of his exclusion from the final list of candidates.
INEC’s Chairman of Information and Voter Education Committee, Mohammed Haruna, disclosed the decisions in an interview with TheCable on Friday.
Haruna said Pantami’s petition was successful but noted that his candidacy remained subject to the outcome of a pending court case.
“Pantami was successful, but you know that there are pending cases and it depends on the outcomes of the court cases, but Ladi Adebutu did not succeed this phase,” he said.
On Gwarzo, who is the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) governorship candidate in Kano State, Haruna said his petition was also successful.
However, he explained that INEC could not publish Gwarzo’s name because of an interim order issued by a Federal High Court in Kano on October 27, restraining the commission from including any candidate on its list as the NDC’s governorship candidate.
The decisions followed INEC’s review of petitions challenging the final lists of governorship and State Houses of Assembly candidates published on October 10.
In a statement issued on Thursday, the commission said it received 69 petitions from 12 political parties across 26 states concerning governorship candidates. Of the petitions, 41 were successful, while 28 were rejected.
For the State Houses of Assembly elections, INEC received 61 petitions from 11 political parties across 11 states. Twenty-five were upheld, while 36 were unsuccessful.
The commission explained that the complaints involved the omission of political parties, wrongful inclusion of candidates whose names were absent from their parties’ membership registers and alleged multiple nominations.
INEC said it approved the inclusion of candidates and political parties whose petitions were found to have merit, while removing names that were wrongly included in the original lists.
It added that the affected candidates, political parties and states would be reflected in an updated list on its website.
Pantami, who previously served as Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, is the PDP governorship candidate in Gombe State, while Adebutu is the party’s candidate in Ogun State.
Both were initially excluded from INEC’s final list, leaving the PDP without governorship candidates in the two states.
