Iortyom Bemgba, a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate for Mata (Ushongo I) constituency in Benue State, is 957 years old according to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Bemgba is one of three candidates INEC has listed as being over 100 years old in its final list for the 2027 State House of Assembly elections. The commission lists Egan Benjamin, a PDP candidate for Warri South-West constituency in Delta State, as 955 years old and Fapohunda Olanrewaju, an Action Democratic Party (ADP) candidate for Alimosho I constituency in Lagos State, as 156 years old.
INEC listed this in its 693-page-long final list of candidates, published on October 10.
Aside from the odd ages, the document also omits Borno State entirely. The candidate list also totals differently from what Joash Amupitan, the INEC chairman, announced four days before its publication.
INEC’s candidate — ideally — should have been vetted by staff of the commission. The available iteration on the agency’s website did carry the signature of the commission’s secretary Rose Oriaran-Anthony.
THESE CANDIDATES ARE OLDER THAN WORLD’S OLDEST PERSON
On page 145 of the candidate list, INEC records Bemgba as a 957-year-old candidate. His entry, numbered 341, identifies him as the PDP candidate for Mata (Ushongo I) constituency in Benue State.
On page 184, the commission lists Egan Benjamin, entry 300, as a 955-year-old PDP candidate for Warri South-West constituency in Delta State. Page 425, entry 33, lists Fapohunda Olanrewaju as being 156 years old. INEC identifies him as an ADP candidate for Alimosho I constituency in Lagos State.
The entries are not plausible and are likely to be data entry or record processing errors. The document doesn’t indicate that these ages were filled in by the candidates themselves also. For context, the oldest person in the world is Ethel Caterham, a 117-year-old woman living in the United Kingdom… At least, according to the Guinness World Record.
INEC’S LIST HAS AN AGELESS CANDIDATE
INEC’s list also has incomplete entries for some candidates. For instance, Ojike Innocent, an All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) candidate for Oyi constituency in Anambra State, did not have any age. The column for this entry in the document is empty.
On page 82, entry 240, the candidate’s age field is blank. The remarks column reads “COURT ORDER”, but the document does not explain whether the court order has anything to do with the missing age.
The entry raises another question about the commission’s publication process: why does a document presented as the final list contain a candidate whose age is missing?
BORNO STATE IS MISSING FROM THE LIST
More importantly, FIJ found that Borno State isn’t listed in the documents. The list contains candidates from 35 states, with no separate Borno State section in the 693-page document.
INEC’S CANDIDATE TOTALS DO NOT MATCH
The commission’s candidate total, per the document, does not tally with the number that chairman Amupitan had announced.
On October 6, Amupitan announced at a press briefing and national stakeholders’ meeting in Abuja that 21 of Nigeria’s 22 registered political parties had nominated 9,692 candidates for the State House of Assembly elections.
Four days later, INEC published its final candidate list. A count of the numbered entries in the 693-page document gives 9,802 candidates, 110 more than the chairman’s announcement.
FIJ has reported other minor yet consequential lapses in INEC’s handling of the documentation leading up to the election, which is 97 days away. For instance, FIJ reported how INEC announced the display of the voters register but listed nothing on its website in contravention of the 2026 electoral act.
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