Okoya Reuben Boutuaowei

Reuben Boutuaowei Okoya is the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) candidate for Bayelsa Central Senatorial District in the Senate election of 16 January 2027 (INEC final list, 12 September 2026). An architect from Yenagoa Local Government Area, he was born on 3 July 1961 according to a 2015 profile in The Nation; INEC lists him as 65, male, with declared qualifications FSLC and SSC. Press profiles say he studied Environmental Design at the University of Oklahoma and took a Master of Architecture at Florida A&M University in 1984, then practised in the United States for 16 years before returning to Nigeria in 2000. His late father, Ezekiel Pappah Okoya, was the Ibenanaowei of Ekpetiama and a minister in the old Eastern Region government. Back in Bayelsa he served as a state commissioner in the Alamieyeseigha and Goodluck Jonathan administrations, most often described as Commissioner for Special Projects (some reports say Special Duties; PM News calls him a two-time commissioner). From August 2011 until 28 May 2015 he was Coordinator of the Abuja Metropolitan Management Council in the Federal Capital Territory, overseeing development control, environmental protection and emergency management. In February 2015 he was grand patron of the Goodluck Continuity Forum, which campaigned for President Jonathan's re-election. He sought the PDP governorship ticket in Bayelsa in 2015 but withdrew on 9 September 2015 "in deference to" party leaders backing Governor Seriake Dickson, later denied that he had been pressured or paid to step down, and in November 2015 endorsed Dickson's re-election. In the PDP governorship primary of 3 September 2019 he received 19 votes; Douye Diri won with 561. He is chairman and chief executive of Architectronix Limited, the firm that built the remodelled Bauchi State Government House, commissioned by Vice President Kashim Shettima. After resigning from the PDP he joined the NDC in May 2026: Tribune reported his formal reception into the party on 18 May, and the NDC national chairman, Senator Moses Cleopas, received him and other defectors at the party's Yenagoa secretariat on 20 May. Details of his 2026 NDC senatorial primary were not found as of October 2026.