- As Party NWC allegedly denies replacing any names
ABUJA — The upcoming August hearing at the Federal High Court in Abuja promises an explosive legal showdown over the crisis trailing the All Progressives Congress (APC) National Assembly primaries in Ondo State. A high-stakes legal gamble has emerged, marked by a fresh twist: serving lawmakers who were substituted into the candidate list by the party’s national leadership are confidently boasting that the APC National Working Committee (NWC) has denied replacing anyone.
According to inside sources, Starnews NG gathered over the weekend that the party has allegedly issued fresh Certified True Copies (CTCs) of primary results to these favoured incumbents. This move aims to present them in court not as replacements, but as the original, legitimate winners from the field.
However, this “no substitution” defence faces a mountain of contrary evidence. Displaced aspirants possess televised video broadcasts and dual-certified documents, setting up a legal battleground that political analysts warn could trigger a self-inflicted disaster for the ruling party ahead of the 2027 general elections.
The Ondo State crisis is not an isolated event; it is the fallout of a massive, sweeping intervention by the APC NWC following the conclusion of its internal primary appeal process. Across Nigeria, the party’s national leadership overhauled its primary outcomes, replacing a staggering 26 aspirants across seven senatorial districts and 19 House of Representatives constituencies.
This sweeping purge disrupted tickets in Kogi, Abia, Benue, Taraba, Ondo, Niger, Kwara, Kaduna, and Ebonyi states, affecting powerful political players, including former governors and serving members of the National Assembly. In Ondo State, the NWC’s decision to allegedly alter the list directly targeted the preferred choices and close allies of Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa.
This move has triggered an immediate legal backlash before an Abuja Federal High Court. Inside the Ondo case is a tale of two legal factions. While seven major aggrieved aspirants have approached the court to demand justice against the APC NWC and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), a closer look at the lawsuit reveals that the plaintiffs are divided into two distinct categories based on how they were removed.
The cases of Olumuyiwa Daramola (Okitipupa/Irele Federal Constituency), Leke Akingboye (Ilaje/Ese-Odo Federal Constituency), Oyerinmade Matthew (Ile-Oluji/Okeigbo/Odigbo Federal Constituency), and Abiola Makinde (Ondo West/East Federal Constituency) are identical and structurally formidable. These four aspirants were openly declared winners in widely covered, televised events.
Media cameras captured the moment the official APC election committees announced their victories and handed them result sheets. Crucially, sources reveal that Daramola and his peers acted swiftly before the Abuja power-play. They secured Certified True Copies (CTCs) of those original results from both the APC and INEC. This dual-certification leaves a pristine, immutable paper trail.
In contrast, the remaining plaintiffs—Gbenga Elegbeleye (Ondo North Senatorial), Dr Taiwo Fasoranti (Ondo Central Senatorial), and Rasaq Obe (Idanre/Ifedore)—face a completely different battle. Some of them were allegedly disqualified or disrupted on the actual day of the election. Their legal arguments will focus less on a “clash of result sheets” and more on whether the party violated its own constitution and the Electoral Act by orchestrating late-stage, unprocedural disqualifications right at the polling centres.
The confidence displayed over the weekend by the serving lawmakers relying on freshly minted NWC results presents a high-stakes legal strategy. However, electoral jurisprudence experts suggest this manoeuvre could easily collapse into a trap for the APC.
Under Section 84 of the Electoral Act, Starnews NG reports that a political party cannot simply swap names after a valid primary has concluded unless a candidate dies or voluntarily withdraws. To circumvent this, the APC’s defence is trying to reshape the past by claiming that the “Aiyedatiwa primaries” never officially happened or were invalid, and that the freshly papered incumbents were the original winners all along.
This defence faces three severe legal obstacles:
- The Invalidation of Late-Stage Paperwork: Nigerian courts have consistently ruled that a party cannot manufacture an alternative reality that contradicts the physical facts on the ground. The court is likely to contrast the lawmakers’ alleged newly issued paperwork against the timeline of the actual events.
- The Weight of INEC’s Presence: A primary election is legally void if INEC does not monitor it. Daramola, Akingboye, Matthew, and Makinde hold CTCs from INEC proving that the commission’s field officers physically witnessed and certified their victories. If the APC presents alternative result sheets, they must explain how a separate primary took place without INEC’s statutory monitoring.
- The Digital Noose: Under the Evidence Act, the televised video recordings showing the APC election committee declaring the original aspirants as winners are highly admissible. These recordings make it nearly impossible for the party to claim that those results were illegitimate or nonexistent.
The Looming Ghost of Zamfara
By attempting to paper over a publicly broadcasted primary election with retroactive documents, the APC national leadership is taking a massive gamble. If the court reviews the video evidence and INEC’s primary reports and concludes that the NWC fabricated a secondary layer of results to bypass the Electoral Act, the court may choose not to install either faction. Instead, the court could rule that the party failed to conduct a valid, lawful primary election. This scenario would mirror the infamous Zamfara State debacle, completely disqualifying the APC from participating in those specific National Assembly contests and conceding the seats to opposition parties before a single ballot is cast.
When court resumes this August, the central question will not be who the party prefers, but whose paper trail the law believes, Starnews NG can report.
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