APC Disqualifies Four Fubara Loyalists Ahead of Rivers State House of Representatives Primaries
The battle for Rivers State has taken another sharp turn. And this time, the blow has landed not on a campaign platform or in a government house press release — but in a quietly devastating list. A final list. The kind that ends political ambitions before a single vote is cast.
The All Progressives Congress has disqualified four aspirants closely associated with Rivers State Governor Siminalayi Fubara from participating in the party’s House of Representatives primary elections scheduled for Saturday, the 16th of May, 2026. The message embedded in that decision is one that every political actor in Rivers State will spend the weekend decoding.
The List That Changed Everything
Akahi News gathered that the APC’s national leadership released the final list of cleared and disqualified aspirants on Friday — the eve of the primaries — and transmitted it through the state’s party structure.
The Publicity Secretary of the Rivers State APC, Chibike Ikenga, confirmed the list in a statement issued in Port Harcourt, titled: “Final List of Aspirants for the House of Representatives Primary Election for Saturday, 16th May, 2026.”
The statement carried the weight of finality. “Aspirants are kindly advised to note and comply accordingly,” it read. “This information must be taken seriously in view of the election as scheduled.”
Note and comply. Four words that, for four men, represent the collapse of a political dream — at least for this cycle.
Who Was Disqualified — and Why It Matters
The four aspirants barred from the primaries are not peripheral figures. They are men with standing, with history, and — crucially — with known allegiance to Governor Fubara.
Akahi News learnt that among those disqualified are two serving members of the House of Representatives: Awaji Inombek Abiante and Boma Goodhead. Sitting federal lawmakers, returned to Abuja by their constituencies, now told they cannot contest the primaries of their own party.
Abiante’s disqualification carries particular political symbolism. He is one of the most prominent politicians in Rivers State who purchased a governorship expression-of-interest form on behalf of Governor Siminalayi Fubara — a public act of loyalty that positioned him unmistakably in the Fubara camp at a time when that camp is locked in an open and bitter contest with another faction of Rivers State APC politics.
The other two disqualified are Air Commodore John Opera (rtd) and Hon. Anderson Igbiki. A retired military officer turned political aspirant, and a sitting honourable — both cleared out before they could even step onto the primary field.
It was alleged that the disqualification of these four men is not a procedural coincidence. In Rivers State politics, where every list, every appointment, every exclusion carries factional meaning, the removal of four Fubara loyalists from a single primary tells its own story — loudly, even without a press conference.
Twenty-One Cleared — Including a Familiar Name
While four were shown the door, twenty-one aspirants received clearance to contest the Saturday primaries.
Among those cleared is a name that will immediately draw attention: Martin Amaewhule — the Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly.
Amaewhule is contesting the Obio/Apor Federal Constituency seat. The significance of this particular race goes beyond a single constituency. He is, in effect, seeking to unseat his own kinsman — the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, Hon. Kingsley Chinda.
That is a pointed political contest. Two figures from the same community. One seeking to replace the other. In a political climate as charged as Rivers State’s, this is not merely a primary race — it is a proxy battle in a much larger war.
Akahi News learnt that Amaewhule’s clearance by the APC national leadership — in the same list that disqualified four Fubara allies — is being read in political circles as a further indication of where the party’s national leadership stands in the ongoing Rivers State power struggle.
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The Fubara Factor: A Governor Under Siege Within His Own Party
To understand why this disqualification carries the weight it does, one must first understand the extraordinary political situation that has consumed Rivers State for the better part of the past year.
Governor Siminalayi Fubara has been navigating one of the most complex and publicly fractious intra-party conflicts in Nigeria’s recent political history — a standoff that has involved the Rivers State House of Assembly, allegations of attempted impeachment, court orders flying in multiple directions, and the visible involvement of national political forces.
The conflict, at its core, is a battle for control of Rivers State’s political machinery — between Fubara’s faction and the forces aligned with his predecessor and former godfather, Nyesom Wike, now the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory.
The APC’s national leadership has not been a neutral observer in this contest. And the decision to disqualify four men openly associated with Fubara — while clearing the Speaker who has been associated with the opposing factional alignment — is a decision that will be read, in Rivers State, as a declaration.
Whether that declaration accelerates or deepens the existing conflict remains to be seen.
Sitting Lawmakers Turned Away — What Does That Say?
There is something worth pausing on in the specific nature of this disqualification.
Abiante and Goodhead are not aspirants seeking their first political office. They are currently serving members of the House of Representatives. They sit in the Green Chamber today, representing constituencies in Rivers State. And the party through which they sought re-election has told them — on the eve of primaries — that they are not cleared to contest.
In Nigerian political culture, this kind of last-minute disqualification is not without precedent. Party primaries have long been arenas where national leadership can exercise control over who advances and who does not — regardless of public standing, constituency support, or political merit.
But when the disqualified are sitting federal lawmakers with clear factional identity, the exercise of that control becomes a political statement rather than a procedural one. It signals who the national party structure wants in its House — and who it does not.
For Fubara and his allies, the message is stark. The machinery is not neutral. The list is not random.
Port Harcourt on the Eve of Primaries
Friday evening in Port Harcourt, one imagines, was not quiet. The release of this list — with its clearances and its exclusions — would have set off the kind of urgent phone calls, WhatsApp exchanges, and emergency meetings that characterise Nigerian political nights before major party exercises.
Lawyers were likely consulted. Court options were likely assessed. The question of whether any of the disqualified aspirants could seek emergency judicial intervention before Saturday’s primaries was almost certainly on someone’s mind.
Akahi News had earlier reported on the pattern of court orders and counter-orders that have marked Rivers State’s recent political history — a pattern in which the judiciary has been drawn into factional battles in ways that have tested the patience of the courts and the clarity of the law.
Whether that pattern extends to Saturday’s primaries — whether anyone runs to court before the exercise begins — will be part of the story that unfolds in the coming hours.
The National Leadership’s Hand
One phrase in the APC state Publicity Secretary’s statement deserves particular attention.
“The list was released by the national leadership of the party,” Ikenga confirmed.
This was not a state-level decision. This was not the Rivers State APC executive making a local call. The cleared and disqualified lists came from Abuja. From the party’s national structure. From the leadership that sits at the apex of the APC’s organisational hierarchy.
That provenance matters enormously. It means that the disqualification of four Fubara loyalists cannot be attributed to local animosity or state-level factionalism alone. It means the national party — whatever its public posture on the Rivers State crisis — has made a decision with its list.
It is not a child’s play, being disqualified by your own party on the eve of primaries. But it is especially not a child’s play when the disqualification comes bearing the signature of national leadership.
What Happens on Saturday
The primaries will proceed. Twenty-one cleared aspirants will contest. And the four disqualified men will watch from outside the gate of a process they sought to participate in.
What happens after Saturday depends on many variables — the outcomes of the primaries, the reactions of the disqualified aspirants and their political principal, and the broader trajectory of the Rivers State political conflict that shows no signs of resolution.
For Governor Fubara, the disqualification of four of his allies is a political setback that he will need to respond to — whether through legal channels, public statements, or the quieter repositioning of his political strategy.
For the APC national leadership, Saturday’s primaries in Rivers State are a test of whether the structures they control can deliver orderly exercises in a state that has been anything but orderly.
And for ordinary Rivers State residents — who ultimately live with the consequences of every political battle fought in their name — the question is a simpler and more human one: when will the fighting stop? When will the energy spent on factional warfare be redirected toward the roads, hospitals, schools, and livelihoods that actual governance is supposed to deliver?
That question, as always in Nigerian politics, floats above the lists and the press releases and the cleared and disqualified names — unanswered, patient, and persistent.
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Akahi News will continue to monitor developments from the Rivers State APC primaries as they unfold on Saturday and bring you updates on outcomes, reactions, and the broader political implications for Rivers State.
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Reported by Joseph Iyaji for Akahi News — your trusted source for credible, community-aware news across Nigeria and beyond.
