Paul Ikonne

Paul Ikonne, styled Prince Paul Ikonne, is the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate for Abia South Senatorial District in the Senate election of 16 January 2027 (INEC final list, 12 September 2026). INEC lists him as 56, with a First School Leaving Certificate, SSCE and a B.Sc. in Accounting. He hails from Aba North LGA and is a son of Eze Isaac Ikonne, the Enyi 1 of Aba and a former chairman of the Abia State Council of Traditional Rulers. He served in the Abia State government as Commissioner for Lands (2007-2008) and Commissioner for Works and Transport (2008-2009), and was the governorship candidate of the now-defunct Action Congress of Nigeria in April 2011, an election won by Theodore Orji of the PDP (some reports call him an ACN aspirant). He is described as a founding member of the APC in Abia State in 2014 and in 2017 as founder of the pro-Buhari group Ndigbo for PMB 2019. He lost two APC governorship primaries: on 2 October 2018 he polled 999 votes as Uchechukwu Ogah won with 86,875, after speaking for aspirants who alleged the primary committee had been compromised (the committee chairman denied it); on 26 May 2022, when the party held parallel primaries, he polled 22 delegate votes at the indirect primary won by Ikechi Emenike and 27,054 at the direct primary won by Uche Ogah, and joined three other aspirants in rejecting the outcome. President Muhammadu Buhari appointed him Executive Secretary of the National Agricultural Land Development Authority (NALDA) with effect from 1 June 2020 for an initial five years; President Bola Tinubu named his successor, Cornelius Oluwasegun Adebayo, on 13 July 2024. In June 2021 The Whistler reported a petition to the EFCC by a NALDA zonal coordinator alleging misuse of the agency's N2 billion take-off grant; no investigation outcome or response from him was reported. In July 2022 the Trademarks Registry withdrew the 'Enyimba FM' trademark of EMPAU Communication Ltd, a company reported to be his, as approved in error. In April 2025 petitioners from Okpu Umuobo, Osisioma Ngwa LGA, told the Abia State Judiciary Panel of Inquiry on the Recovery of Government Properties and Funds that he had demolished a school structure on their land to site a NALDA project; the panel reserved its recommendation, and no finding or response from him was found. He picked the APC's Abia South Senate nomination forms on 29 April 2026. At the party's direct primary, declared on 18 May 2026, he placed fourth with 4,099 votes behind Uchenna Erondu Jnr (16,640), Nyerere Anyim (5,206) and Blessing Nwagba (4,456). Acting on its Primary Election Appeals Committee report, the APC National Working Committee named Ikonne the Abia South candidate in a list sent to INEC dated 29 June 2026, while the Abia APC chapter kept Erondu on its own list. Erondu, who says he never withdrew, sued the APC, INEC, Ikonne and two others at the Federal High Court, Abuja (FHC/ABJ/CS/1803/2026); the case was adjourned to 9 September 2026 and no ruling was found as of October 2026.