‘Why I sued APC over name substitution’

A former Attorney General of Niger State, Barrister Adamu Usman has explained why he dragged the All Progressives Congress to court after the party’s 2026 primaries

Usman, a former Speaker of the Niger State House of Assembly said he had emerged as his party’s consensus candidate for the Mokwa Federal Constituency House of Representatives seat but had his name replaced after the 2026 primaries.

He told Arewa PUNCH in a chat that he had to drag the party and the State Independent Electoral Commission to the law court to restore his name on the  ballot, saying his people and teeming supporters wanted him to still contest.

While describing the action of the party and INEC as an act of impunity, he insisted that if a legal luminary like him shied away from  challenging the two groups, nobody would muster the courage to challenge the action in court

Usman, who, along  with his supporters in his federal constituency inaugurated the Tinubu, Bago, Usman support group, further revealed that while they are fighting to get his name back on the APC ballot, they also want to ensure that they continue to sensitise the electorates to vote for the APC

He said, “We are going back to send this message to them that Barrister Adamu Usman, the consensus candidate that was returned, is still in the race. Hope is still alive and they should not despair. And in any case, similar incidents have happened before. This is not the first time when two candidates, both the returned candidate and the replaced person were having issues

“In Lavun, we experienced such before. In Makun local government, we had a similar incident before.

Even at the senatorial districts between General Idris and Distinguished Senator Mustapha,  they had the same issue and at the end of the day,  the court resolved the matter.

“So, we are very hopeful that the nomination will not stand and by the grace of God, they will return us and therefore, we need to sensitise our people to make them believe that we are still in the race and we are still urging them that they should vote for APC because we can not afford to fold our arms across. If we do that, for obvious reasons, the people may just walk away and other parties will take over,” he said.

Usman, while further speaking on how he felt after his name was substituted for another person’s name after the primaries for the House of Representatives election, maintained,

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“Believe you me sincerely, when my name was substituted, instead of my name to be submitted to the INEC, believe me sincerely, not only me but to everybody was angry. It was all round anger per excellence for everybody within Mokwa and also, by extension, the federal constituency.

“But the idea of inaugurating the support group was an idea that was hatched by the support groups themselves not only me. They are from different wards of the three local governments, and they came to me and told me that they want to give me their kind support.

“So, obviously, these are the kind of things we are trying to address and ensuring that our institutions are built on similar challenges.

“We cannot continue to allow this kind of impunity to continue because so many people thought I would not challenge it in court.

“If we don’t take the courage to challenge the system, and we keep on being lackadaisical about it, and keep on believing that it is the party, believe me, one day, they will just announce that we are starting the primaries afresh and that the forms will be purchased secretly, and some people will just buy the form without, and without participating in the primaries they will be declared winners and returned, and there will be no hope for the common man.

“It is people like us, with legal minds who can challenge their impunity. We have nothing to lose if we challenge them in court. And that is what we are doing, we are challenging them in court.

“We are challenging the establishment so that there should be need for institutional growth. Political parties are institutions and we should not allow them to be acting with impunity. It is wrong, totally wrong to have the rules and then you jettison the rules in the middle of the game, only to go and bring other strange and new things to the game. It is very unfair,” Usman declared.

Meanwhile, the Director General of the Tinubu, Bago and Usman Support Group, Hon Hussaini Wabi in his remarks affirmed that the substitution of the name of their candidate, the former Attorney General of Niger State angered most of the supporters, stressing that members now have hope that the name swap would be reversed.

“Our people are already aggrieved by what happened but with this everybody is coming back to give their backing and support to our candidate. He is a grassroot politician. He has been in the system for long and he has been helping people, including those that are not in APC.

“Everybody has been calling us to find out if Barrister Usman will be given the ticket. Definitely even other party members will vote for us. We are sensitising our people. We are telling them to vote for APC because we are reclaiming our seat,” he pointed out.