INEC said in 2025 it could not list Omo-Aje as Action Alliance chairman. Its register now lists him "By Court Order"

On Thursday, 9 October 2025, the Independent National Electoral Commission signed a one-page press release about the Action Alliance (AA), the party whose presidential candidate is Rufai Adekunle Omo-Aje. INEC posted the release on its official X account the next day, and Vero Record downloaded the image from that post and read it. The release gives the commission's reason for keeping Omo-Aje's name off its list of party officers: "The judgement of the Court of Appeal is superior to that of the federal high court, hence, the Commission cannot list Omoaje's name as the Chairman of the Action Alliance party when the judgement of the Appeal Court is still subsisting." It is signed by Sam Olumekun, National Commissioner and Chairman of the Information and Voter Education Committee.

INEC's party register today says otherwise. On 1 October 2026 Vero Record loaded the commission's Action Alliance page at inecnigeria.org/parties/action-alliance-aa and saved a copy. Under "National Chairman" it reads "Hon. Adekunle Rufai Omoaje (By Court Order)". The four officers below him are each marked the same way: Miller C. Orgwu as National Secretary, Sani Darma as National Treasurer, Awoniyi Awolola as National Financial Secretary and Barr. Abiodun Rufai as National Legal Adviser. The page gives no court, judge, date or suit number for the order it refers to. INEC's signed final list of candidates for the January 2027 presidential election, also downloaded and read by Vero Record, puts "RUFAI ADEKUNLE OMO-AJE" of the AA at entry 1, age 71, with Shehu Hussaini as running mate. Every page of that list is signed by Rose Oriaran-Anthony, Secretary of the Commission.

The October 2025 release sets out the sequence as INEC saw it. It says the Federal High Court in Osogbo gave an order on 29 September 2025. It says that on Monday, 6 October 2025, "which was still within the deadline", the commission filed processes in Osogbo to show it had complied with the court's judgment "of recognising the Action Alliance's (AA) executive elected on 7th October 2023 at Abeokuta, Ogun State". When the judgment creditors complained that INEC had listed "only four national executives without the national chairman, Rufai Omoaje", INEC says it replied by attaching "the Notice of Appeal filed by the same Omoaje at the Supreme Court, challenging the judgement of the Court of Appeal sacking him as the National Chairman of the party." In other words, INEC's stated position in October 2025 was that it could not list Omo-Aje as chairman until the Court of Appeal judgment was set aside, and the only court that could set it aside was the Supreme Court, where Omo-Aje's own appeal was pending.

This paragraph is Vero Record's own reading of the two INEC documents, graded C. The register now lists four "By Court Order" officers under the chairman, which matches the "four national executives" INEC said it had already uploaded in October 2025. The one change is the name at the top. At some point after 9 October 2025, INEC added the name it had said it could not add, and it later accepted a presidential nomination made by the party under his chairmanship. We have not found any public INEC statement that gives the legal reason for the change.

The Appeal Court judgment INEC referred to has been identified by the rival faction, not by INEC. In a statement reported by The Eagle Online on 23 June 2025, the faction led by Kenneth Udeze gave it as Adekunle Rufai Omoaje and 2 others v. Chief Uzewuru Nwachukwu and 3 others, appeal number CA/ABJ/CV/955/2022, decided on 26 January 2024. In April 2026 the faction's national secretary, Vernimbe James, told Leadership that Omo-Aje's appeal against that judgment was before the Supreme Court as SC/CV/162/2024 and had not been decided. Vero Record has not read the Court of Appeal judgment or the notice of appeal, so these case details are graded B. We searched press archives and the web for any Supreme Court decision in SC/CV/162/2024 and found none. That does not show no decision exists. It shows none has been reported where we could find it.

Press reports place INEC's change of position in the months after October 2025, when Prof. Joash Amupitan had taken over as INEC chairman. Peoples Daily reported that INEC had replaced Udeze's name with Omo-Aje's on its portal after the Osogbo court gave the commission a seven-day ultimatum, and that Omo-Aje thanked Amupitan "for his respect for the rule of law". We saw that report only in search results because the Peoples Daily site did not load, so we do not rely on its date. On 12 November 2025, according to Nigerian Tribune and Leadership, Omo-Aje's counsel discontinued a separate Federal High Court suit, FHC/KB/CS/8/2024, which had asked the court to order INEC to publish his name as national chairman. Justice Obiora Egwuatu struck it out. The reports do not say why the suit was withdrawn.

Court filings from 2026, as reported, give two accounts of what INEC relied on. In a suit decided on 23 April 2026, according to ThisDay and Nigerian Tribune, an application by Miller C. Ogwu (spelled Orgwu on the INEC register) said the Ekiti access code had been released to Omo-Aje, "whom INEC recognised as National Chairman of the party based on the judgment of a Federal High Court in Osogbo delivered on February 17, 2025". On 13 May 2026, in suit FHC/ABJ/CS/43/2026, Justice Egwuatu held that Omo-Aje is the recognised national chairman, "citing earlier judgments from the Federal High Court, Osogbo Division, which INEC had complied with", according to New Nigerian Newspapers. Both accounts point to Federal High Court judgments. INEC's own statement of October 2025 said a Federal High Court judgment could not override the Court of Appeal.

INEC's dealings with the two factions over the same months were not consistent. According to New Nigerian's report of the 13 May judgment, INEC first gave the Omo-Aje leadership access codes for the Ekiti governorship nominations. Then, on 29 December 2025, it published an Ekiti final list without that leadership's candidates. The party told the court that INEC's ICT director said the names could not be uploaded because they "did not match candidates from a different primary, allegedly monitored by INEC". The Udeze faction said in its own suit that INEC had monitored its Ekiti primary, which produced Ayo Ogunlade as its candidate. Justice Emeka Nwite struck that suit out on 23 April 2026, holding that party leadership was an internal matter outside the court's jurisdiction. Three weeks later Justice Egwuatu ordered INEC to publish the candidates of Omo-Aje's leadership, and it did. None of these judgments has been read by Vero Record. They are graded B.

The chairmanship decides whose primary counts. Section 29(1) of the Electoral Act, 2026, which Vero Record read in INEC's published copy, requires each party to submit candidates "who shall have emerged from valid primaries conducted by the political party". Section 32(2) requires a party that finds its candidate missing from INEC's published list to notify the commission in writing "signed by its National Chairman and Secretary". On 30 May 2026, according to The Sun, delegates at the AA presidential primary in Abuja adopted Omo-Aje, already the national chairman, as candidate by consensus, with INEC officials monitoring. Premium Times reported that the party submitted his nomination in July. In accepting, Omo-Aje commended INEC for "adherence to the judgments of competent courts".

The rival faction held its own primary. On 24 September 2026 Premium Times reported that Joseph Faduri, the candidate of the Udeze-led faction, told Arise Television that "instead of obeying the Court of Appeal, the INEC chairman is sticking with the old High Court order". He said he had gone back to court to make INEC recognise him and had written to the Attorney-General of the Federation. A coalition of civil society groups, in a statement reported by Blueprint on 17 September, named the faction's candidate as Joseph Oluwadare Fadojoe. We could not establish whether Faduri and Fadojoe are the same person under two spellings. On 24 July 2026 The Whistler reported that Udeze had threatened contempt proceedings against Amupitan. Udeze said his lawyers wrote to INEC in May and July 2026, sent certified copies of five Court of Appeal decisions, and received no reply. He cited Section 287(2) of the Constitution, which requires all authorities to enforce Court of Appeal decisions.

Omo-Aje's side has a legal case of its own, and it rests on documents we have not seen either. His faction says that its National Think Tank, which it calls the party's highest organ, suspended and then expelled Udeze. It also says the Supreme Court dismissed Udeze's appeal against that expulsion on 14 May 2024, according to a party statement reported by The Sun in October 2025. The Osogbo judgment of 29 September 2025, suit FHC/OS/CS/34/2025, was delivered by Justice Funmilola Demi-Ajayi, whose surname is spelled several ways in the press. TVC News reported that she found the Abeokuta convention valid because it "had been duly monitored by INEC" and described INEC's recognition of Udeze as arbitrary. The Udeze faction calls that judgment forum shopping and says it was obtained while the Supreme Court appeal was pending. Both factions are relying on court decisions. They cannot both be right, and a court with authority over both lines of judgments has not yet settled the matter in public.

There are several explanations Vero Record could not rule out. The Supreme Court may have decided SC/CV/162/2024 in a judgment that has not been reported. INEC may have treated a later order, such as the Osogbo court's enforcement of its own judgment or Justice Egwuatu's May 2026 ruling, as binding on it. Or the commission may have changed its legal view of which judgment it must follow. Any of these would explain the register. What we can say is that none of them appears in any INEC document we have found. The commission's last signed public explanation on the question is the October 2025 release, and it points the other way.

The register entry matters for more than one party's letterhead. INEC's party page is the public record voters and courts use to see who speaks for a party. "By Court Order" appears against the chairmen of three of the 22 registered parties, as Vero Record reported in its profile of Omo-Aje: the AA, the National Democratic Party and the Nigeria Democratic Congress. In each case the register does not say which order is meant. For the AA, INEC itself published a statement saying which order it believed controlled the question, and the register now shows the opposite result.

Vero Record has not put these questions to INEC or to Omo-Aje's campaign, and had no comment from either at publication. The questions are these. Which court order does the "By Court Order" entry refer to? Has the Supreme Court decided SC/CV/162/2024, and if it has, when? Does INEC still hold the view it signed on 9 October 2025, that a subsisting Court of Appeal judgment outranks a Federal High Court judgment on this question? Any answer will be published here in full.

What this rests on

Three INEC documents Vero Record downloaded and read: the signed press release of 9 October 2025 (Sam Olumekun), posted as an image on INEC's official X account on 10 October 2025, which says the commission "cannot list Omoaje's name as the Chairman" while the Court of Appeal judgment "is still subsisting"; INEC's live Action Alliance register page (captured 1 October 2026), which lists "Hon. Adekunle Rufai Omoaje (By Court Order)" as national chairman; and INEC's signed 2027 presidential final list, which names Omo-Aje at entry 1. The Electoral Act 2026 (INEC copy), sections 29(1) and 32(2), was also read. Court case numbers, dates and holdings (CA/ABJ/CV/955/2022, SC/CV/162/2024, FHC/OS/CS/34/2025, FHC/ABJ/CS/43/2026, CA/MK/60/2026, FHC/KB/CS/8/2024) come from press reports and are graded B. The observation that the four other officers on the register match the "four national executives" INEC said it had uploaded is Vero Record's own inference, graded C.

What this does not establish

We did not read any of the judgments involved, at trial or on appeal, nor Omo-Aje's notice of appeal. We could not confirm whether the Supreme Court has decided SC/CV/162/2024. We found no reported decision, and that absence is not proof that none exists. We could not establish which court order INEC relies on for the "By Court Order" entry, or the exact date it added Omo-Aje's name. The record does not show that Omo-Aje did anything unlawful, and no court has found that he did. Conflicting judgments in party leadership disputes are common, and the Federal High Court judgments in his favour are real, reported decisions. This story does not establish which faction lawfully leads the Action Alliance, and it does not establish that INEC is in breach of any order. Vero Record had not obtained comment from INEC or from Omo-Aje before publication. We could not confirm whether "Joseph Faduri" (Premium Times) and "Joseph Oluwadare Fadojoe" (Blueprint, Leadership) are the same person.