The Zamfara precedent should have been the loudest warning bell any political party could ever receive, yet it appears certain actors within the Benue APC either forgot the lesson or simply believed they were above it. In 2019, the All Progressives Congress swept every single elective position in Zamfara State, only to watch the courts strip the party of every seat won because of unresolved primaries controversies. That singular event remains one of the most painful lessons in the history of Nigerian party politics, a case where victory at the polls meant nothing because the party failed to settle its internal disputes before facing the electorate. It is what many now call the successful defeat, a party that won everything and lost everything in one court pronouncement.
It was precisely to avoid a repeat of that disaster that the APC strengthened its Appeal Committee, a body vested with the responsibility of reviewing complaints arising from primaries and resolving them with finality. This committee exists as the internal safeguard, the mechanism meant to catch and correct every irregularity before matters spiral into litigation that could embarrass the party nationally.
Going into the 2026 primaries, the APC made its position unmistakably clear. Results were not to be announced at state level. Everything was to be centrally coordinated and released only after all controversies had been addressed. This was not a suggestion, it was policy.
Yet in Benue, officials who supervised the primaries were allegedly pressured into announcing results prematurely, in open defiance of that directive and amid credible evidence of misconduct. This was done by elements who apparently regard presidential directives as optional suggestions rather than binding instructions from the leader of their own party.
It must be recalled that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had personally intervened in the Benue APC crisis and handed down a clear directive: all elected officials of the party were to be returned automatically, unopposed and undisturbed. Chief Hyacinth Iormem Alia, a governor once described by Chief Gabriel Suswam as more powerful than God, appeared emboldened rather than restrained by that intervention. Rather than comply, he reportedly dismissed the presidential directive as mere prayers, fielded his own preferred candidates, and proceeded to manipulate the outcome of the primaries in his favour.
What followed was the proper constitutional response within the party structure. Appeals were filed before the Appeal Committee. Upon due consideration of the evidence, the committee ordered rectifications and forwarded fresh names to the Independent National Electoral Commission. It bears emphasis that those so called new names are not strangers to the party. They are the very officials the president had directed should be automatically returned. Their restoration, and the consequent removal of Alia’s placeholders, is not an act of party disloyalty. It is an act that vindicates internal discipline, protects the party’s transparency, and honours the chain of authority from the presidency downward.
Having taken that decision, the APC owes itself, and every Nigerian who still believes in due process, the duty to stand firmly behind the Appeal Committee’s verdict. Any pressure to reverse or dilute a decision that is already in effect would amount to inviting the ghost of Zamfara back into the room, only this time in Benue. The party constitution says the party is supreme. Benue should not be the state where that supremacy is tested and found wanting.
