APGA Imo council elections challenge asks the Owerri High Court to stop ISIEC’s 26 September local government poll over defective notice
On Monday, 21 September 2026, reports confirmed that the All Progressives Grand Alliance and four of its Imo State executives had asked the High Court of Imo State, Owerri Judicial Division, to stop the Imo State Independent Electoral Commission and its chairman, Chief Charles Ejiogu, from holding local government elections fixed for Saturday, 26 September 2026.
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The APGA Imo council elections suit, numbered HOW/1380/2026 and filed on 16 September, seeks an injunction restraining ISIEC and Chief Charles Ejiogu until the substantive case is heard.
The plaintiffs say a 360-day Notice of Election issued on 18 September 2025 was defective because it did not name a polling date, contrary to the Electoral Act then in force.
They also say ISIEC’s statement of 11 September 2026, which fixed Saturday, 26 September, came too late to repair that notice.
In that statement Chief Charles Ejiogu told parties the poll would fill 27 local government chairmanships and 305 ward council seats across 4,758 polling units, and pointed back to the 2025 notice issued under Section 28(1) of the Electoral Act 2022.
APGA argues that the Electoral Act 2022, the law under which the original notice went out, has been repealed by the Electoral Act 2026, which took effect in February.
The party further questions whether ISIEC met rules on the register of voters, including a 90-day window for registration and revision to stop before polling day.
The filing cites a 2025 Supreme Court judgment on the Rivers State local government elections, which treated statutory notice and register requirements as mandatory.
ISIEC has presented the September date as the completion of a year-long notice, not a fresh timetable. Opposition voices outside the courtroom have been harsher.
The Forum of Political Parties State Chairmen, through coordinating secretary Uzor Agaptus, had already warned that a firm date issued with about two weeks’ notice left parties too little time for primaries, candidates and campaigns, and threatened separate court action against what Uzor Agaptus called an “electoral jamboree”.
Governor Hope Uzodinma’s administration has meanwhile approved 27 local government Prosperity Coordinators and 305 ward Prosperity Officers, a move critics read as a parallel structure beside the coming councils.
Also read: Amupitan Cites Vital INEC Bye-Election Lessons
The court has not yet ruled. With five days to polling day, the APGA Imo council elections case now sits between a commission that says the notice clock started in 2025 and a party that says the legal ground under that notice has already shifted.
