Uzodimma Loses APC Imo West Ticket as Court Rules for Okorocha

The Federal High Court in Abuja has ordered Imo State Governor Hope Uzodimma to stop parading himself as the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate for Imo West Senatorial District in the 2027 general election.

Justice Obiora Egwuatu gave the order on Thursday after ruling that former Imo State governor Rochas Okorocha won the party’s senatorial primary conducted on May 18.

The judge held that evidence before the court showed that Okorocha secured the majority of votes cast during the exercise, contrary to the declaration that produced Uzodimma as the party’s candidate.

Consequently, Justice Egwuatu directed the APC to forward Okorocha’s name to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as its candidate for the Imo West senatorial election scheduled for January 16, 2027.

The judgment followed a legal battle in which Okorocha challenged INEC’s recognition of Uzodimma as the party’s candidate for the election.

The former governor had approached the court to determine whether the electoral commission was bound by the reports submitted by its officials who monitored the APC primary.

In the suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1854/2026, Okorocha argued that INEC acted wrongly by recognising Uzodimma as the winner despite what he described as evidence that he won the exercise.

He joined INEC, Uzodimma and the APC as respondents in the case filed on August 13, 2026. <Cite refs={[“turn162167search2″,”turn162167search3”]}/>

The dispute arose from conflicting accounts of the primary election. The APC’s returning officer, Rear Admiral Williams Kayoda, had announced that Uzodimma won with 230,464 votes, while Okorocha scored 1,098 votes.

However, Okorocha claimed that he secured 150,780 votes against 102,158 for the governor, insisting that the party and INEC failed to recognise the result he said reflected the actual outcome of the exercise.

The controversy intensified after a document circulated online identifying Okorocha as the winner of the primary.

INEC subsequently petitioned the Department of State Services and the police to investigate the document, which the commission described as fictitious.

The commission maintained that its official records identified Uzodimma as the winner.

Okorocha governed Imo State from 2011 to 2019 and later represented Imo West in the Senate from 2019 to 2023.

Uzodimma, who began his second term as governor in January 2024, had sought the APC ticket to return to the National Assembly ahead of the end of his tenure.

The court’s latest decision places the party’s nomination process at the centre of the political contest in Imo West ahead of the 2027 general election.