Delta State GovernorS Party Switch Sparks Legal Battle

This story has legs – and it isn’t neat. Sheriff Oborevwori, the governor of Delta State, has publicly moved from the Peoples democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC). That alone would be news. But a local PDP member has taken the switch to court, and the resulting legal fight raises awkward questions about votes, mandates and what it means to change parties while holding power.

What the suit says – the basics

A man named Alex Akporute, who describes himself as a PDP member from Ward 3/7 in Ughelli North, filed the case at the Federal High Court in Abuja. The action was lodged by originating summons on December 3, 2025, and the suit number is FHC/ABJ/CS/2601/2025. Everyone involved – the governor, the PDP, the APC, INEC and the Delta State Attorney-General – received hearing notices on December 17. Justice Omotosho has been assigned to the file.

Akporute isn’t asking the court to toss Oborevwori out of office right now. That’s a notable departure from some past cases. Instead,the complaint focuses on whether a sitting governor can switch party labels and,crucially,continue to exercise the mandate he won while a member of a different party. In short: does a governor have the right to change party affiliation and keep running the state on that new platform?

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Key legal thrusts – what Akporute argues

The plaintiff makes four constitutional points, but the central argument boils down to this: the votes that put Oborevwori in office were cast for him as the PDP candidate. That, Akporute insists, means the mandate effectively belongs to the PDP. The governor’s claimed “freedom of association” – the right to join another party – is real, he says, but it cannot be stretched to include transferring an electoral mandate from one party to another while still in office.

Akporute leans on Section 40 of the 1999 Constitution and on the Electoral Act 2022. He argues that those laws don’t allow a sitting governor to implement or promote policies of a party he didn’t win under. The claim reads like this: if a leader campaigned and won on PDP promises,then switching to APC mid-term and pushing APC policies undermines what voters actually chose. That, he warns, chips away at democratic principles and the supremacy of the people’s vote.

What relief the plaintiff wants

The remedies Akporute seeks are targeted and specific. He wants a declaration that a serving governor’s use of constitutional rights – like joining a new party – cannot be exercised in ways that conflict with the electoral mandate given to the PDP by Delta voters. He also asks the court to declare any executive action taken on the basis of the APC platform unlawful and void.

There’s more: he wants the APC restrained from presenting itself