The All Progressives Congress (APC) has made it crystal clear: governors who recently crossed over from opposition parties won’t get a free pass to the 2027 ballot. In a series of statements from senior party figures, the APC’s National Working Committee (NWC) and Director of Publicity, Bala Ibrahim, stressed that “there will be no automatic tickets for any of them. They must contest and earn their tickets through the party’s democratic process.”
The affected governors include *Siminalayi Fubara (Rivers), Peter Mbah (Enugu), Umo Eno (Akwa Ibom), Agbu Kefas (Taraba), and Sheriff Oborevwori (Delta)*, as well as Kano’s *Abba Kabir Yusuf*, whose defection is still rumored. A member of the NWC, speaking on anonymity, said the same rule applies to every aspirant—whether they’re long‑standing members or fresh defectors—emphasising that even President Bola Tinubu has not been handed an automatic ticket.
Bala Ibrahim added that the party’s “progressive and democratic” nature means all candidates must go through primaries, with party members ultimately deciding who flies the APC flag. He warned that defection alone does not confer any special privilege, and that “the party will not arbitrarily hand over tickets to anyone simply because they are governors or because they defected.”
Opposition voices, such as PDP’s national publicity secretary Ini Ememobong and NNPP’s Oladipo Johnson, have framed the move as a sign that the APC will treat new entrants as “outsiders,” while some analysts see it as a strategic push to keep the party’s internal democracy intact ahead of a heated 2027 election.
In short, the APC is closing the door on easy re‑election for its newest members, forcing them to battle it out in primaries just like every other aspirant.
