EDITORIAL: 2027: When imposition of candidates is cloaked as consensus

The flag-bearers of political parties for elective offices in the 2027 general elections have emerged. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had earlier set 30 May as the deadline. However, the outcomes of the primary elections held so far have, in broad terms, unfortunately exemplified the duplicity, falsifications and violence that have characterised and bogged down our democracy to date. These
have raised genuine concerns about the fate of next year’s polls.

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The Electoral Act 2026 in Section 84 (2) spells out that “The procedure for the nomination of candidates by political parties for various elective positions shall be direct primaries or consensus.” For the latter, there must be written consent by all aspirants for it to be legitimate.

In the states where the governors had been given free rein by President Bola Tinubu to conduct primaries for the All Progressives Congress (APC), they forced many aspirants to step down for their anointed choices. The ruling party has thus superintended over primaries in 8,809 electoral wards in the country. A total of 993 state houses of assembly tickets, 360 House of Representatives, 109 senatorial slots and the presidential ticket were up for grabs.

But during the process, some aspirants refused to be cowed or intimidated out of the races, particularly in the call for consensus candidates. The screening of candidates that followed became vile mechanisms through which governors and political godfathers used to perfect their plots. Unwanted aspirants were weeded out without any reason given.

In Rivers State, for instance, there were 98 APC aspirants for the state assembly seats, and 33 persons were cleared by the screening panel. The screening out of a serving senator, Ipalibo Banigo, who was also once a deputy governor, with no reason, and a run of play orchestrated to exclude Governor Siminalayi Fubara from the race, are the stuff that the subversion of democratic processes is made of.

Despite this phase being over, the din of protests continues to rise across the parties. In some cases, outright rejection of the outcomes by those who feel short-changed has taken centre stage. In Ekiti State, Ayo Arise, a former senator, described the primaries as “fraudulent,” alleging the alteration of results from wards at the final collation centre. There are varying degrees of discontent in the ADC and NDC, too.

During the primaries, in many instances, party membership registers were not visibly used to verify those who turned up as bona fide members. The charade reached its climax – in a number of cases – in the geometric counting of those who lined up behind the posters of their preferred candidates. From one, two and three; some counts suddenly jumped to 1,000, 1,500, and 2,000, and so on, as evident in certain videos of the polls.

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On the basis of these outrageous direct primaries, the National Chairman of APC, Professor Nentawe Yilwatda, flaunted over 12 million people in the party’s membership register, out of which 10.9 million trooped out to vote for the president. According to him, the figure is in the membership data with INEC.

In fact, an APC faithful had enthused that with such a huge support base, its members alone are capable of voting the president back to power. Mr Tinubu had 8.8 million total votes in the 2023 presidential election.

At this point, public interest is focused on how the Chairman of INEC, Joash Amupitan, dismissed Mr Yilwatda’s claim through his Chief Press Secretary, Dayo Oketola, whose digital disclaimer stated that: “Dear esteemed media colleagues, please note that this is certainly not from INEC.” So, what could be Mr Yilwatda’s motive in declaring such a figure?

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with having consensus candidates or opting for direct primaries as the mode of candidate nominations for elections. In climes where these are well handled, they deepen party cohesion and minimise the tendency of bribing delegates, which indirect primaries impose on the electoral process. Ironically, these indirect primaries were no less immune to such sleaze.

Equally, the costs of nomination forms, we strongly urge, should not be used to fleece aspirants who party leaders know from the start have no chance of success, due to the lack of a level playing field for all to compete. For the APC, the sums of ₦50 million for governorship, ₦20 million for Senate, ₦10 million for House of Representatives, and ₦6 million for state houses of assembly were expended on the purchase of expressions of interest and nomination forms.

Only the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) was rational enough to have allowed payments for nomination forms strictly for those who had emerged as candidates. Its state assembly forms cost ₦2.5 million each, while forms for aspirants to the Senate and House of Representatives cost ₦8 million and ₦6 million, respectively.

PREMIUM TIMES believes that the country’s leadership recruitment process needs to adhere to known democratic principles and the rule of law. The way and manner in which governors have been handpicking their preferred candidates, especially their successors, clearly undermines our democracy. This has to stop. It is laughable that this rogue template of political ordination brought APC governors to Abuja recently, during which the Niger State Governor, Umar Bago, told State House correspondents that, “We came to thank the President for his magnanimity and his support to the governors and for our party.”

No less critical are the differing judgments of Justices Mohammed Umar and James Omotosho on Sections 32 and 71 of the Electoral Act, 2025. Both are of the Federal High Court, Abuja. It was an abuse of court process for INEC to have approached a court of coordinate jurisdiction to seek redress, instead of waiting for the apex court to determine the matter, in a suit it had already filed.

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Section 29 (1) of the Electoral Act requires political parties to submit the particulars of candidates not later than 120 days before elections. And under Section 31, political parties are entitled to withdraw and replace candidates up until 90 days before elections.

These provisions, alongside Messrs Umar and Omotosho’s judgments, were upheld as sacrosanct, being principal legislation. But INEC sought to vary, amend, diminish or override them through its guidelines, which the apex court had decided against three years earlier.

This tendency to act ultra vires is a variant of the abuse of the electoral system. A perversion of the process by the electoral umpire creates an ecosystem that party leaders exploit to undermine democracy, and this gambit has begun with these impositions. It must be checked by the judiciary in the interest of fair play, accountability and integrity of the electoral process.