Updated 15 August 2026. INEC has restored Isoko North II. This page remains the background report first published on 4 May 2026. The restoration story is here: INEC Restores Isoko North II State Constituency. The civic page for the seat is Isoko North II State Constituency. No member has been sworn in. The ward split has not been published.
OZORO, Delta State — For decades the people of Isoko North Local Government Area sent one voice to the Delta State House of Assembly. Isoko South sent two. That gap is the story of Isoko North Constituency II — also called Isoko North II — the seat dropped in the 1998 delimitation and named again by INEC in August 2026.
How the seat was lost
Before 1999 Isoko North, like Isoko South, had two State Assembly seats. In the 1998 constituency delimitation the Independent National Electoral Commission suppressed Isoko North II. From the opening of the Fourth Republic the whole LGA voted for a single member in Asaba.
That member today is Hon. Bernard Odior, who sits for Isoko North State Constituency (also called North I). He still covers the entire council until INEC publishes which of the thirteen wards move to North II and a member is sworn in there.
The suppression produced years of suits. A Federal High Court in Warri, and later orders, told INEC to restore constituencies dropped from earlier maps. Implementation for Isoko North II stayed unfinished long after similar cases had moved.
What this newspaper recorded in May 2026
On 30 April 2026 INEC issued a memo (Ref: INEC/HQ/EOPS/DEL/S.32/213) starting technical work on twenty court-ordered suppressed State constituencies nationwide. In Delta the first fieldwork list named Ethiope West I, Sapele II and Ika North East II. Isoko North II was not on that list.
That omission is why this article was written. Senator Joel-Onowakpo Thomas (Delta South) had already used the North II case in the Senate. In June 2026 the Isoko Monitoring Group, in a statement signed by Dr Oke Michael and Dr Kingsley Oroh, called on INEC to restore the seat without delay.
South’s two seats were, and remain, Isoko South I (Oleh, Emede, Irri) and Isoko South II (Olomoro, Aviara, Igbide, Enwhe, Umeh–Erowha, Uzere).
The restoration
On 31 July 2026 the Resident Electoral Commissioner in Delta State, Sir Etekamba Udo Umoren, told a stakeholders’ meeting in Asaba that work had begun on Abraka, Ughelli South II and Isoko North II.
On Friday, 15 August 2026, INEC made the restoration formal. National Commissioner Mohammed Kudu Haruna named four restored Assembly seats: Abraka, Isoko North II and Ughelli South II in Delta State, and Yagba West II in Kogi State. The commission said it was acting on court judgments.
Haruna fixed 21–25 August 2026 for party primaries in the restored constituencies. He said the published timetable for the 2027 general election applies to those seats. That is not the same race as the 19 September 2026 bye-elections named in the same statement for other vacancies, including Udu in Delta State.
Read the sequel on this site: INEC Restores Isoko North II State Constituency.
What restoration does — and does not — change
Two North seats would match South’s two. That is the fairness argument this newspaper set out in May.
It does not create a second federal seat. The House of Representatives office remains the single Isoko North / Isoko South Federal Constituency. The Senate seat remains Delta South.
INEC has not, as of this update, published the ward map. Isoko North LGA’s thirteen wards — Iyede I, Iyede II, Ellu / Aradhe / Ovrode, Ofagbe, Iluelogbo, Owhe / Akiehwe, Emevor, Okpe-Isoko, Ozoro I, Ozoro II, Ozoro III, Oyede, Otibio — still sit under the sitting North member until that notice exists.
This newspaper will not name a member for North II until a candidate is declared elected and sworn in.
Why the fight mattered
After 1999 every road brief, school file and oil-host complaint from Ozoro, Iyede, Owhe, Emevor, Ellu, Ofagbe, Oyede, Okpe-Isoko and the other northern clans travelled through one Assembly member. South kept two voices. The restoration puts that arithmetic back on the books. Filling the chair is the next line.
Anyone with the commission’s ward notice or a swearing-in record should send it to info@isoko.com.ng.
Read next
- INEC Restores Isoko North II State Constituency — news report, 15 August 2026
- Isoko North II State Constituency — civic page; vacant until a member is sworn in
- Isoko North I State Constituency — the sitting seat; Hon. Bernard Odior
- Isoko North LGA — the council both North seats will sit in
- Isoko South I and Isoko South II — the two South seats North II is meant to match
- Isoko North / Isoko South Federal Constituency — House of Representatives; still one seat
- All Isoko Assembly constituencies
Isoko Nation · @IsokoNationNG