The Makinde-Daura Presidential Campaign Organisation has accused the ruling All Progressive Congress, APC, of plotting to hijack unclaimed Permanent Voter Cards, PVCs, for the 2027 general elections.

The campaign council made this allegation in a statement on Thursday, stating that some officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, were planning to release millions of unclaimed PVCs to APC-linked individuals ahead of the election.

It urged INEC to immediately address the allegation and tell Nigerians how uncollected voter cards are being protected across the country.

According to the council, the issue was too serious to be ignored, especially as political parties doubled their preparations for the 2027 general election.

The council issued a strong warning, stressing that any compromise in the custody of unclaimed PVCs could create room for electoral manipulation and weaken public confidence in the outcome of the election.

“An unclaimed PVC must neither be a disposable property nor a political asset to the enemies of credible elections.

“Nigerians do not need post-election explanations; they deserve pre-election transparency,” the council said.

A Federal High Court sitting in Ado-Ekiti has struck out a suit seeking to nullify the nomination of Toyin Okoro as the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate for Ekiti South Federal Constituency 1 in the 2027 House of Representatives election.

Justice Babs Kuewumi struck out the suit, marked FHC/AD/CS/19/2026, filed by Babalotin Bayo against Okoro and three others, on the grounds that the plaintiff lacked the legal standing to institute the action and that the court lacked jurisdiction to entertain it.

Bayo had approached the court seeking to invalidate the outcome of the APC primary election that produced Okoro as the party’s candidate for the federal constituency comprising Ikere, Ise-Orun and Ekiti South-West.

In his judgment, Justice Kuewumi described the plaintiff as a “meddlesome interloper” and a “busybody”, holding that he had no legal standing to challenge the conduct or outcome of the party’s primary.

The judge noted that Section 285 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, and relevant provisions of the Electoral Act confer the statutory right to challenge a party primary on an aspirant who participated in the primary.

Justice Kuewumi further ruled that the Ekiti State chapter of the APC does not have a separate legal personality that would allow it to be sued independently of the party’s national body.

Consequently, the judge struck out the name of the APC Ekiti State chapter from the suit.

Okoro, an indigene of Ise-Ekiti, emerged as the APC candidate after defeating the incumbent lawmaker, AVM Rufus Ojuawo (retd.), in the party’s May 2026 primary. His emergence was subsequently confirmed by the party’s National Working Committee (NWC).

Reacting to the judgment, Okoro’s lead counsel, Dr Femi Ogunlade, who appeared alongside Dr K.O. Francis, described the decision as a victory for the rule of law and internal party democracy.

Ogunlade said the judgment had reaffirmed that individuals could not assume constitutional rights that were not available to them.

“The court has come out clearly to re-affirm that no individual can confer constitutional rights upon themselves where none exists. The substratum of the plaintiff’s case was defective from the outset because he was never an aspirant in the primary election,” he said.

Also reacting, a lawyer and community leader from Ise-Ekiti, Adebayo Adeji, said the judgment had brought an end to the legal dispute surrounding Okoro’s candidacy.

Adeji said Okoro had strong support across the federal constituency, which comprises Ise-Orun, Ikere and Ekiti South-West Local Government Areas.

“The court has validated the choice of the people, and the decision shows that no individual can stand in the way of a moving political train,” he said.

The ruling leaves Okoro as the APC’s candidate for the constituency ahead of the 2027 elections.

Meanwhile, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has warned that political parties that field candidates whose names are not contained in the membership registers submitted to the commission will not be allowed to participate in the 2027 elections.

INEC National Commissioner in charge of Information and Voter Education, Mohammed Haruna, disclosed this while speaking on Trust TV’s Daily Politics programme on Wednesday evening.

Haruna said such parties would also not be allowed to substitute affected candidates, stressing that parties should not benefit from violations of the law.

“It’s like you committed an offence. And then, you come and benefit from it,” he said, citing previous cases involving Zamfara and Plateau states.

According to him, INEC was expected to make a definite pronouncement on the Supreme Court’s September 24, 2026 judgment by Tuesday next week, after obtaining legal advice on the Certified True Copy (CTC) of the judgment.

Haruna said the commission had to exercise caution because forged copies of court judgments had been presented in the past.

He added that the implication of the decision could extend to governorship and legislative candidates, saying some political parties might be unable to field candidates if they failed to meet the legal requirements.

“All the candidates, all the way to the houses of assembly, we interviewed them. If their names are not on the party register, they were not members of the party at the time that they contested for those tickets,” he said.

Haruna also expressed concern over the use of threats during political campaigns, saying such conduct should worry political parties and Nigerians generally.

“Those kinds of things, even if it’s a minority, it’s a cause for concern, because nobody should be threatened at all,” he said.