INEC set primaries for four restored Delta and Kogi State Assembly seats to start seven days after announcing them. The Electoral Act requires parties to give it 21 days' notice

On Friday, 14 August 2026, the Independent National Electoral Commission announced that it had restored four State House of Assembly constituencies: Abraka, Isoko North II and Ughelli South II in Delta State, and Yagba West II in Kogi State. It said it was acting "pursuant to the Judgment of the Courts directing the restoration of the additional constituencies in the two states." The same release fixed 21 to 25 August 2026 for party primaries in the four seats. The first day of that window fell seven days after the release, and the last day 11 days after it. Section 82(1) of the Electoral Act 2026 requires every registered party to give the commission "at least 21 days' notice" of any meeting convened for nominating candidates. Section 82(6) says that a failure to do so "shall render the primaries" invalid.

Vero Record downloaded the one-page release from the commission's website, where it is posted as an image, and read it. It is headed "Restoration of Constituencies in Delta and Kogi States" and signed by Mohammed Kudu Haruna, National Commissioner and Chairman of the Information and Voter Education Committee. It says the primary window "coincides with the period for the conduct of primaries" for five bye-elections: Gombe/Kwami/Funakaye Federal Constituency in Gombe, Disina and Sakwa in Bauchi, Udu in Delta and Dawakin Kudu in Kano. It adds: "For the avoidance of doubt, all other timelines and activities contained in the already published revised Timetable and Schedule of Activities for the 2027 General Election shall apply to the restored Constituencies." On notice it says only: "Political Parties are requested to submit Notices of their various Primaries to the Commission before their scheduled dates." The release does not mention section 82 or a 21-day period, and it cites no power to shorten one.

Vero Record read section 82 in the copy of the Act that the commission publishes on its own website. Subsection (2) says the notice "shall specify the date, time, venue, and names of the members of the congress, convention or conference committee". Subsection (5) sets the same 21 days for Area Council primaries. We found no provision in the Act that lets the commission shorten or waive the period. Section 151 allows it to issue regulations, guidelines or manuals, but only "subject to the provisions of this Act". Section 82(3) lets the commission attend and observe a primary "with or without prior notice to the political party". That subsection governs the commission's attendance. It does not relieve a party of its own duty to give notice.

The days can be counted from the release. A notice delivered on 14 August, the day it was issued, gives seven days before a primary on 21 August and 11 days before one on 25 August. To give 21 days, a party holding its primary on 21 August would have had to notify the commission by 31 July. A party holding it on 25 August would have needed to do so by 4 August. Both dates came before the commission announced the window. If the Act is read as requiring 21 clear days, each deadline moves one day earlier. This is our arithmetic, not a finding by any court or by the commission.

The commission did act on court decisions, and the record gives parties in Delta more warning than the release alone suggests. Wsentinel reported on 1 August that the commission had begun implementing a Federal High Court judgment on the three Delta constituencies at a stakeholders' meeting at its Asaba office, where it set up a technical team to fix their boundaries. Ndokwa Reporters dated that start to 31 July and said litigation over the seats went back to 2014. Counted forward, 31 July is exactly 21 days before 21 August. A Delta party that notified the commission that day could in principle have met the requirement for a primary on 21 August or later, although it could not yet have known the window. Vero Record could not obtain any of the judgments, their suit numbers or their dates, so we cannot say whether a court fixed a timetable. We found no published account of when the Kogi judgment was given. The words "four more" and "three more in Delta and one more in Kogi" suggest earlier restorations, which we have not traced.

The parties moved quickly. P.M. News reported on 19 August that the All Progressives Congress had issued a timetable, signed by its National Organising Secretary, Sulaiman Argungu, covering the four restored seats and the five bye-election seats. Forms were on sale from 18 to 20 August, screening was set for 21 August, and direct primaries were fixed for Saturday, 22 August. That was eight days after the commission's release. Twenty-one days before 22 August is 1 August. We have not seen the APC's notice to the commission and do not know when it was filed. We have not seen the notices of any other party either.

The Act's other 21-day rule does not appear to be an obstacle. Section 77(4) requires each party to give the commission its membership register "not later than 21 days before the date fixed for the party primaries". The commission's release of 15 May 2026, which Vero Record has read, says all 22 registered parties had submitted their registers "as of 8th May 2026". That is 105 days before 21 August. The same release shows that the commission treats such periods as binding. It says the register deadline was moved from 21 April to 10 May 2026 "to align with the provisions of Section 77(4) of the Electoral Act 2026".

The instruction that "all other timelines" apply raises a second question. On 8 August 2026 the commission announced, in a release also signed by Haruna, that the window for uploading candidate lists for the governorship and State House of Assembly elections, which "according to the revised Timetable and Schedule of Activities for the General Election was originally scheduled to close, Saturday, 8th August, 2026, has been extended to Tuesday, 11th August, 2026." That deadline passed three days before the restoration release, 10 days before the first permitted primary and 14 days before the last. The 14 August release does not say whether the portal would reopen for the four seats. The Act itself leaves more room. Section 29(1) requires lists "not later than 120 days before the date appointed for a general election". Counted back from 6 February 2027, that is 9 October 2026. Any conflict here is with the commission's own timetable, not with the statute, and we found no record either way of a special window.

The release has also been read in two ways on the election date. The sentence "Elections into these constituencies have been fixed for 19th September, 2026" directly follows the list of bye-election seats. Several outlets, including P.M. News and Wsentinel, reported that the restored constituencies would vote on 19 September. A summary of the release held in the code of the commission's website says the same: "Elections Date: 19th September, 2026 (held concurrently with constituency bye-elections)." The commission's published election calendar does not support that reading. It lists four bye-elections on 19 September 2026, for Gombe/Kwami/Funakaye, Disina and Sakwa, Udu and Dawakin Kudu, and none of the four restored seats. It lists the governorship and State House of Assembly election for 6 February 2027. Read with the "avoidance of doubt" sentence, the four restored seats vote in that election, 176 days after the release.

The bye-elections that shared the primary window are subject to the same rule, because section 82(1) makes no exception for them. Voice of Nigeria reported on 19 August that the commission would publish its notice of election for Gombe/Kwami/Funakaye on Thursday, 20 August, the day before primaries opened. On 21 August the Resident Electoral Commissioner in Delta, Etekamba Udo-Umoren, gave reporters in Asaba the Udu timetable, according to The News Chronicle. Primaries ran from 21 to 25 August, nomination forms were due from 29 August to 2 September, the final list was due on 8 September and campaigns ran from 9 to 17 September. Section 32(1) of the Act requires the commission to publish the names of candidates "at least 60 days before the day of the election". The date of 8 September is 11 days before the 19 September poll. In the commission's favour, the one provision written for by-elections, section 28(3), requires a notice of election "not later than 14 days before the date appointed for the election", and 20 August to 19 September is 30 days. The Act does not say how its general deadlines apply to a seat that falls vacant between elections. These timetable details come from press reports, not from a commission document we have read.

The final candidate lists the commission published on 12 September cover only the Senate and the House of Representatives. Candidates for the four restored seats do not appear on them, and could not, because those lists contain federal constituencies such as Isoko North/Isoko South and Ughelli North, Ughelli South/Udu, not State House of Assembly seats. Under the commission's timetable, as summarised by the Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre and reported by the press, the final list for the governorship and State House of Assembly elections is due on 10 October 2026. That list should show whether any party's candidate for Abraka, Isoko North II, Ughelli South II or Yagba West II was accepted.

What the documents establish is limited. They show the commission fixing a primary window seven to 11 days after its own announcement, under an Act that requires 21 days' notice and gives the commission no stated power to shorten it. They do not show whether any party gave 21 days' notice, which notices the commission received and when, or whether it monitored the primaries. They do not show whether the courts' judgments set dates, or whether anyone has challenged a primary on this ground. Only a court can decide whether a primary is invalid under section 82(6).

What this rests on

Documents downloaded and read on 3 October 2026: INEC press release "Restoration of Constituencies in Delta and Kogi States", 14 August 2026, signed by Mohammed Kudu Haruna (image on inecnigeria.org, byte-identical to a copy saved on 30 September); INEC press release of 8 August 2026 extending the governorship and State House of Assembly candidate upload deadline to 11 August (image on inecnigeria.org, byte-identical to the earlier copy); INEC press release of 15 May 2026 on party membership registers (image from INEC's X account); the Electoral Act 2026 as published by INEC at inecnigeria.org/documents/Electoral-Act-2026.pdf (124 pages; ss.28, 29, 31, 32, 77, 82, 151 read in full; s.82 on PDF page 37), byte-identical to an earlier copy; INEC's election calendar page (screenshot, 3 October 2026); INEC's Senate and House final lists of 12 September (checked for the four seat names). Day counts, each checked with a date calculator: 14 Aug to 21 Aug = 7 days; 14 Aug to 25 Aug = 11 days; 21 Aug minus 21 days = 31 Jul; 25 Aug minus 21 days = 4 Aug; 22 Aug minus 21 days = 1 Aug; 14 Aug to 22 Aug = 8 days; 31 Jul to 21 Aug = 21 days; 11 Aug to 14 Aug = 3 days; 11 Aug to 21 Aug = 10 days; 11 Aug to 25 Aug = 14 days; 6 Feb 2027 minus 120 days = 9 Oct 2026; 14 Aug 2026 to 6 Feb 2027 = 176 days (17 + 30 + 31 + 30 + 31 + 31 + 6); 8 May to 21 Aug = 105 days; 8 Sep to 19 Sep = 11 days; 20 Aug to 19 Sep = 30 days. Day names: 14 Aug 2026 Friday, 11 Aug Tuesday, 22 Aug Saturday. Court implementation date (31 July), the APC timetable, the bye-election timetables and the 10 October final-list date are from press reports and the PLAC factsheet, used as context and graded B.

What this does not establish

Whether any party gave INEC 21 days' notice of a primary for the four restored seats or the five bye-election seats, and when INEC received each notice. Whether the court judgments fixed dates or otherwise authorised a shorter timetable; we could not obtain the judgments, suit numbers or dates, and found no account of when the Kogi judgment was given. Whether INEC reopened its candidate portal for the restored seats after 11 August. Whether any primary has been challenged under section 82(6); only a court can rule a primary invalid. Which earlier restorations the words "four more" refer to. Whether candidates for the four seats will appear on the governorship and State House of Assembly final list due on 10 October. The bye-election timetables (notice of election 20 August, final list 8 September) are taken from Voice of Nigeria and The News Chronicle, not from an INEC document we read. The summary of the release in INEC's website code is not a signed document.