The Social Democratic Party (SDP) says it will go ahead and contest Saturday’s Ekiti State governorship election, dismissing as “fabricated” reports that the party had withdrawn from the race, while accusing the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of blocking its access to a portal needed to register polling agents.
In a statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Araba Rufus Aiyenigba, the party’s National Headquarters said the SDP remains on the ballot and that its candidate, Ambassador Isaac Adebayo Alade, is recognised by INEC as the party’s validly nominated candidate. The statement noted that Alade was among the governorship candidates who signed INEC’s peace pact ahead of the poll.
The party said the withdrawal story was the work of “political jobbers” linked to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), and named an expelled former SDP national chairman, Shehu Musa Gabam, as the person it accused of promoting a rival figure as the party’s candidate.
National Chairman Prof. Sadiq Umar Abubakar Gombe and the party’s National Working Committee said the disinformation should be disregarded by Ekiti voters and the public.
On the agents’ portal, the SDP said INEC’s national secretariat formally issued an access code for uploading the names of its polling unit agents but that Commission officials at headquarters subsequently refused to open the portal, preventing the upload. INEC has not yet responded publicly to the SDP’s claim, and the allegation has not been independently verified.
The party argued that any election in which an electoral umpire shows “unhidden bias” toward locking out a major opposition party’s agents would be rendered unreliable, and said it would not accept what it called disenfranchisement orchestrated by the APC. The SDP did not specify what action, if any, it plans to take regarding the portal dispute ahead of Saturday’s vote.
The statement framed the SDP as a national alternative to the ruling party, citing its record on “political jurisprudence and democratic consolidation” and pledging continued advocacy for clean and credible elections.
The Ekiti governorship election is scheduled for Saturday, June 20, 2026.
