The Independent National Electoral Commission has upheld 41 of the 69 petitions filed against the final list of governorship candidates for the 2027 general election, and rejected 28, in a review that restores some candidates, strikes others and hands the affected parties a fresh reading of the ballot.
The Chairman of the commission’s Information and Voter Education Committee, Mohammed Kudu Haruna, disclosed the figures in a statement issued on Thursday night. He said the petitions came from 12 political parties across 26 states.
The complaints, he said, concerned the omission of certain political parties, the wrongful inclusion of candidates whose names were not contained in the membership registers submitted by their parties, and instances of alleged multiple nominations.
“Following a review of the complaints, relevant records and applicable legal provisions, the Commission found merit in some representations and approved the inclusion of affected candidates and their political parties, while complaints found to be without merit were declined,” Haruna said.
The review cut both ways. Some names wrongfully published in the final list were removed after verification that they did not appear on their parties’ registers, and the commission approved the removal of candidates whose nominations were found to be inconsistent with applicable legal requirements.
For the State Houses of Assembly, INEC received 61 petitions from 11 political parties across 11 states. Twenty-five succeeded and 36 failed, bringing the commission’s total across both categories to 130 petitions reviewed in one sitting.
The statement did not name any candidate or state, but a source at the commission had earlier revealed that Thursday’s meeting cleared a former Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, the Peoples Democratic Party governorship candidate in Gombe State, and the New Nigeria Democratic Congress governorship candidate in Kano State, Abdulsalam Gwarzo, to contest the 2027 elections, subject to the outcome of pending court cases. The source also said the petition by the Peoples Democratic Party governorship candidate in Ogun State, Ladi Adebutu, seeking a review of his exclusion from the list, did not succeed.
The figures show how much work the register rule is still doing to the ballot. Of the 69 governorship petitions, nearly six in ten succeeded, a striking rate for complaints that turn on whether a name sat in a membership register submitted within a deadline. The register provisions, restored by the Supreme Court on September 24, have been the single most consequential legal fact of the 2027 cycle, and Thursday’s review is the commission’s first large-scale application of them in both directions.
The affected candidates, political parties and states will be reflected in the updated lists on the commission’s website. “Once again, the Commission assures the public of its commitment to transparency and the credibility of the electoral process,” the statement said.
What the numbers cannot show is which party gained and which lost in each state, and until the updated lists are published, the 66 restored candidates across the two categories remain figures without faces. The courts will settle some of what the commission has left open, and with the governorship polls fixed for January, the window between a reinstated name and a confirmed ballot is narrowing quickly.