GOMBE, Nigeria – Former Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Professor Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, CON, has emerged as the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in Gombe State ahead of the 2027 general elections, securing an emphatic landslide victory in the court-ordered primary election rerun concluded in Gombe on Tuesday night, political correspondents reported from the party’s state secretariat on Tuesday, September 29, 2026.
The certified returns announced by the PDP State Electoral Committee confirmed that Professor Pantami polled a commanding 2,054 votes from accredited delegates, securing approximately 80 percent of the total ballots cast across the state’s 11 local government areas to defeat his two challengers in an open, transparent contest.
Okay News reports that former Member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Khamisu Ahmed Mailantarki, finished in second place with 389 votes, while party chieftain Usman Aliyu Garry secured 112 votes out of an aggregate total of 2,555 registered delegates who participated in the balloting process.
The decisive rerun was conducted in strict adherence to a judgment delivered on September 24 by the Federal High Court sitting in Gombe, presided over by Justice Amina Aliyu Mohammed, which set aside the party’s earlier May 26 primary on procedural grounds following legal challenges instituted by Mailantarki and Garry.
While the court nullified the consensus voice affirmation that had initially produced Pantami, the trial judge affirmed that the former minister was a fully registered and valid member of the PDP, directing the party leadership to conduct an open repeat primary within 30 days to guarantee equal democratic participation for all cleared contenders.
The peaceful conduct of the primary at the PDP State Secretariat along Bauchi Road was observed directly by monitoring teams from the Independent National Electoral Commission alongside combined security operatives from the Nigeria Police Force and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps.
Party officials and delegates hailed the orderly atmosphere of the exercise, noting that the overwhelming delegate margin has resolved internal nomination friction and provided the opposition platform with renewed momentum to challenge the governing All Progressives Congress in the 2027 gubernatorial election.
With his formal declaration as the winner, Professor Pantami is now statutorily positioned as the PDP governorship standard-bearer for Gombe State, with party leaders calling on all aspirants and grassroots stakeholders to unite behind his campaign machinery ahead of the upcoming general election cycle.
