The reinstated Rivers State chapter of the All Progressives Congress on Monday declared every nomination from its just-concluded primaries null and void, blowing up the party’s candidate list just days after it was assembled. The decision affects Kingsley Chinda, who emerged as the sole governorship candidate with 268,497 votes on May 21, 2026, and other nominees linked to the party’s disputed camps.
That is why Chinda Ogundu is being searched now: the primaries had already produced a governorship ticket and a full slate of candidates for the 2027 National Assembly and State Assembly elections, only for the reinstated leadership to move in and wipe the slate clean. Governor Siminalayi Fubara, Tonye Cole and George-Kelly had withdrawn from the governorship race before the May 21 primary, leaving Chinda to run unopposed and prompting allies of Nyesom Wike to dominate the House of Representatives contest, where 19 of 23 cleared aspirants were aligned to him.
The faction’s announcement went further than the primaries themselves. Darlington Nwauju said all nominations, representations, communications, documentations and decisions taken on behalf of the Rivers APC between December 20, 2024 and May 29, 2026 have no effect on the party. He also urged the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission to withdraw certificates of return issued to candidates from Tony Okocha’s camp after last year’s local government election, while saying those candidates are now running the councils across the state.
The legal fight behind that declaration is what gives it weight. Justice Elfreida Oluwayemisi Williams-Dawodu of the Court of Appeal, Port Harcourt Division, upheld a Rivers State High Court ruling that nullified the congresses that produced Okocha as chairman of the APC in the state. Nwauju said the people now claiming the party’s leadership were neither elected executives under Justice Obomanu’s December 20, 2024 ruling nor caretaker committee members under Justice Aprioku’s August 12, 2024 judgment, and therefore had no right to speak for the party in any capacity.
He added that only a higher court can set aside Justice Obomanu’s order, which the Court of Appeal ruling had sustained, and said the congresses of November 23, 2024 and November 30, 2024 had been “buried.” That leaves the party in Rivers with a fresh problem: a primaries list that has been publicly erased by one faction while another camp is still treated by the APC national leadership as its recognised arm, even though the court-backed side says Okocha’s group never had authority to represent it. What happens next now turns on whether RSIEC pulls the certificates of return and whether the courts force another round of congresses, or another nomination process altogether.
