Yilwatda says the PDP is backing Tinubu. INEC's final list has the PDP's Sandy Onor on the 16 January ballot, and withdrawals closed on 18 October

On Tuesday 20 October the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Nentawe Yilwatda, spoke to State House correspondents in Abuja after he and the Director-General of the APC Presidential Campaign Council, Abdul'aziz Yari, briefed President Bola Tinubu on the campaign launch planned for Kaduna on Saturday 24 October. According to The Punch, he said: "All political parties that have defeated us in any election are with us; PDP is with us, APGA is with us, Accord is with us." Vero Record set that sentence against two primary documents: INEC's final list of candidates for the presidential election of 16 January 2027, and the Electoral Act 2026, which INEC publishes on its website.

The INEC document is headed "Presidential and National Assembly Elections for Jan, 2027 - Presidential. Final List of Candidates". It runs to three pages, each ending "Signed: Rose Oriaran-Anthony, Secretary, INEC", and lists 18 parties, each with a presidential and a vice-presidential candidate. News reports dated its publication to 12 September 2026, the date INEC's revised timetable set for it. The PDF itself carries no date.

Row 14 of the list is the Peoples Democratic Party. It names "ONOR SANDY OJANG", aged 60, as presidential candidate and "UMARU BABANGIDA", aged 61, as vice-presidential candidate. The Remarks column for the row is empty. On the record INEC has published, the PDP is fielding its own candidate against President Tinubu, whose ticket with Vice President Kashim Shettima is row 6 of the same list.

The Electoral Act 2026 sets a fixed point after which that cannot change by the candidate's choice. Section 31 says a candidate "may withdraw his candidature by notice in writing signed by him together with a sworn affidavit delivered personally by the candidate to the political party that nominated him", and that the party "shall convey such withdrawal and the sworn affidavit to the Commission not later than 90 days to the election." Counting back 90 days from 16 January 2027 gives Sunday 18 October 2026. Yilwatda spoke two days after that date.

Section 33 of the Act closes the other route. A party "shall not be allowed to change or substitute its candidate whose name has been submitted under Section 29 of this Act, except in the case of death or withdrawal by the candidate". Read together, the two sections mean that unless Onor delivered a sworn withdrawal that reached INEC by 18 October, the PDP's line on the 16 January presidential ballot carries his name, and votes cast for the PDP are votes for the Onor and Umaru ticket.

Vero Record found no INEC notice, press release or revised list showing a withdrawal by Onor. INEC's website, checked on 21 October, still serves the same final list. That is not proof that no withdrawal was filed: INEC is not required to announce one the day it arrives. It does mean that the only published record of the PDP's position in the presidential race shows a candidate, not an endorsement of the APC's.

The record supports Yilwatda on two of his three parties. APGA does not appear among the 18 parties on the final list, which matches the statement by its national chairman, Sly Ezeokenwa, reported in March, that the party would not field a presidential candidate and intended to adopt Tinubu. Accord is not on the list either, consistent with its candidate Christopher Imumolen's withdrawal and endorsement of Tinubu on 5 August, which came well before the 90-day cut-off. Yilwatda also named the Allied Peoples Movement as the one party that had beaten the APC and was not with it, and the APM is on the list with its own candidate, Oluseyi Makinde, in row 7.

There is a plausible reading under which the PDP part of his statement is political rather than legal. The PDP is split. Onor was named consensus candidate by the faction that recognises the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, as leader, and The Punch reported on the same day that Wike vowed to deliver APC votes in the FCT and Rivers State. A rival faction led by Tanimu Turaki has disputed Wike's leadership and ruled out any alliance with the APC. A party or a faction can urge its members to vote for another party's candidate. What it cannot do, on the Act's wording, is take its own candidate off the ballot after 18 October.

That leaves a direct question for the APC chairman. If the PDP is "with us", which PDP organ took that decision, and does it extend to the PDP's own presidential candidate, whose name INEC will print on the ballot? It leaves a matching question for the PDP. Its national leadership has not, in any record Vero Record found, said whether Onor is still campaigning, has withdrawn, or has stepped back in Tinubu's favour.

The documents do not establish what Onor himself intends, whether any withdrawal was filed before 18 October, or how many PDP members or officials will campaign for the APC. They do not establish that Yilwatda said anything unlawful: a party chairman may describe alliances as he sees them. They establish what the ballot will say.

Vero Record will put these questions to the APC national secretariat, to Onor's campaign and to the PDP national secretariat, and will publish any response in full.

What this rests on

INEC's 2027 presidential final list (3 pages, signed for Secretary Rose Oriaran-Anthony), retrieved from inecnigeria.org on 21 October 2026: 18 numbered rows; row 14 PDP, ONOR SANDY OJANG (60) and UMARU BABANGIDA (61), Remarks blank; row 6 APC, Tinubu and Shettima; row 7 APM, Makinde; no APGA or Accord row. Electoral Act 2026 as published by INEC, s.31 (withdrawal not later than 90 days to the election, PDF p.21) and s.33 (no substitution except death or withdrawal, p.22). Date arithmetic: 16 January 2027 minus 90 days: 16 days back in January to 31 December (16), 31 days of December (47), 30 days of November (77), 13 more days back from 31 October lands on 18 October 2026 (90). 18 October to 20 October is two days. Yilwatda's words are as reported by The Punch on 20 October (grade B for the quotation; the documents are grade A).

What this does not establish

Whether Sandy Onor filed a sworn withdrawal that reached INEC by 18 October 2026; what Onor intends; which PDP organ, if any, resolved to back Tinubu; whether the Turaki faction's challenge to the Onor nomination is pending in court; the exact publication date of the INEC list (the PDF is undated; reports give 12 September 2026). Vero Record has not heard Yilwatda's remarks in a recording and relies on The Punch for the wording.