PDP Vows Court Action to Force INEC to List Its Candidate for 2026 Ekiti Governorship Election

Abuja, December 31, 2025

– The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has announced that it will approach the courts to compel the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to include the name and particulars of its candidate, Dr. Oluwole Oluyede, in the list of candidates for the 2026 Governorship Election in Ekiti State.
In a press statement, the PDP described INEC’s exclusion of its candidate as yet another confirmation of the biased disposition of the current leadership of the Commission towards the affairs of the party.
The party stated that INEC was duly notified of the conduct of its governorship primaries, which the Commission attended, monitored, and subsequently issued reports confirming that the exercise complied with all extant laws and was democratically conducted.
Following the primaries, INEC released the relevant nomination portal codes to the PDP, through which the official nomination forms were accessed. However, the party alleged that INEC disingenuously blocked the code a few days before the submission deadline, forcing the PDP to resort to manual submission at INEC’s office, where receipt was acknowledged.
The PDP argued that, being fully aware of the grave and far-reaching consequences of excluding a validly nominated candidate from an election, INEC ought to have acted with caution and responsibility by including Dr. Oluwole Oluyede in the published list of candidates. This, the party said, would have been the safest and most lawful course of action had the Commission acted without bias.
The party emphasised that there is no contrary submission before INEC disputing the validity of Dr. Oluyede’s nomination, nor is there any court order restraining the Commission from recognising him as the PDP’s candidate. INEC’s own monitoring report, it added, attests to the validity of the primaries and the nomination process.
Having failed to act appropriately, the PDP stated that it has immediately taken steps to approach the courts to compel INEC to do what it ought to have done in the first place.
While pursuing this legal route, the party once again drew INEC’s attention to the expectations of Nigerians that the Commission must remain independent, impartial, and neutral in matters relating to political parties and the electoral process.
The PDP acknowledged the saying that “he who pays the piper dictates the tune,” but warned that the Commission must be conscious that the tune currently being dictated is dangerously high-pitched and will ultimately harm the piper. INEC, it stressed, must always act in defence of democracy, and never in antagonism to it.