Fact-Check: The Claim that Gwagwalada Council’s Elected Chairman Joined the All Progressives Congress is Untrue.

In Fact Check
February 25, 2026
Ajibola Osungbohun
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Claim: An X user claims that the elected chairman of the Gwagwalada council has decamped to the All Progressive Congress Verdict: False Full Text: On the 23rd of February, 2026, an X user, @enevene2003, claimed that the elected chairman of Gwagwalada Council has decamped to the All Progressives Congress. The tweets read thus: “The newly

Claim: An X user claims that the elected chairman of the Gwagwalada council has decamped to the All Progressive Congress

Verdict: False

Full Text:

On the 23rd of February, 2026, an X user, @enevene2003, claimed that the elected chairman of Gwagwalada Council has decamped to the All Progressives Congress.

The tweets read thus: “The newly elected chairman of Gwagwalada Council has decamped to the All Progressives Congress.”

He dropped at exactly 12:39, and as of the time of filing this research, it has garnered 53.1k views, 29 comments, 46 retweets, and 402 likes.

The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Area Council elections will be held on Saturday, February 21, 2026. It is divided into six area councils: Abaji, Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC), Bwari, Gwagwalada, Kuje, and Kwali. Every three years, voters elect 68 officials: six chairpersons and 62 councillors. Unlike Nigeria’s 36 states, the FCT has no elected governor; a minister appointed by the president administers it.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had announced that the election would be held on Saturday, 21st February 2026. Party primaries will be held from 9th to 30th June 2025. The candidate nomination portal will open from 9.00 am on 21st July 2025 to 6.00 pm on 11th August 2025. The final list of candidates will be published on 22nd September 2025. Campaigning in public by political parties will commence on 24th September 2025 and end at midnight on Thursday, 19th February 2026.

Hence, all 17 political parties registered with a total sum of 637 candidates were cleared to contest the 68 available seats: six chairman/vice chairman slots and 62 councillors positions, with Mohammed Kasim of the People Democratic Party (PDP) from the Gwagwalada council area, who won the election.

NDRFactcheck carried out a check to prevent the spread of political misinformation, which could potentially undermine public trust in the democratic process.

Screen image from the X user handle

Verification

We conducted a keyword search for “Gwagwalada elected chairman decamped to APC”; there was no information on such a trend; all we could see was news of him winning.

Additionally, we have checked all reputable media platforms; as of the time of gathering this report, none have reported. There is also officially no letter of resignation from the affected person to his party.

For more investigation, we employed the use of an artificial intelligence tool, @Grok; it still reports that “The newly elected Gwagwalada Area Council chairman is Mohammed Kasim of the PDP. INEC declared him the winner on Feb 22, 2026 (22,165 votes vs APC’s 17,788). No credible reports confirm that he has decamped to the APC; only online speculation is present in comments. Claim unverified.”

Conclusion

The claim that the elected chairman of Gwagwalada Area Council has decamped to the All Progressives Congress is false. Findings show that Mohammed Kasim was elected on the platform of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), and there is no credible report or official confirmation that he has defected to the APC. The claim appears to be based on online speculation and not on verified facts.