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2 weeks ago
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ARTICLE AD BOX
Fault Electoral Act restriction on nomination mode
By Omeiza Ajayi
ABUJA – Nigeria’s registered political parties held a self‑assessment of the primary elections held nationwide ahead of the 2027 general election on Tuesday, concluding that the process was a charade. The parties, speaking under the umbrella of the Inter‑Party Advisory Council (IPAC), blamed the shortcomings on the Electoral Act 2026, which removed indirect primaries as a valid mode of candidate nomination.
IPAC National Chairman Dr. Yusuf Mamman Dantalle made the remarks at the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) Second Quarterly Consultative Meeting with party leaders at the Commission’s headquarters in Abuja. He noted that the nomination exercise, which officially ended on Saturday, 30 May 2026, revealed significant legal, administrative and operational challenges that require urgent national attention.
According to Dantalle, Section 84(2) of the Electoral Act 2026 limits parties to either consensus or direct primaries, forcing them into processes that are neither genuinely democratic nor practically workable. In many cases, parties chose the consensus route even when several aspirants had submitted expressions of interest and nomination forms. Some aspirants were persuaded, and in some cases pressured, to step down after preferred candidates had already been identified by influential party stakeholders.
“While some aspirants accepted these arrangements in the interest of party unity, others challenged their exclusion, arguing that genuine consensus requires the voluntary agreement of all contestants. Consequently, several disputes have found their way to the courts, creating uncertainty and avoidable tension within the political system,” Dantalle said.
The financial and logistical burden of direct primaries further compounded the crisis, hitting hardest the parties without access to governmental resources. Facing these pressures, some parties resorted to extraordinary measures to avoid triggering direct primaries, such as deliberately restricting access to nomination forms and failing to publicly announce primary schedules in a timely manner.
“These developments constitute an unfortunate and unintended consequence of the current legal framework governing party primaries,” the IPAC chairman said.
Dantalle explained that the Council had not been surprised by these outcomes. At its General Assembly meeting on 26 February 2026 in Abuja, IPAC had reviewed the implications of the Electoral Act 2026 and formally urged the National Assembly to reconsider the exclusion of indirect primaries. The Council had taken those concerns to relevant national institutions, the United Nations, the European Union, ECOWAS, diplomatic missions and Nigerians in the Diaspora.
IPAC called on the National Assembly, together with relevant stakeholders, to undertake a comprehensive review of the Electoral Act 2026 to address the operational failures exposed by the nomination process. The Council maintained that political parties should retain the flexibility to determine the most appropriate method of selecting their candidates, provided such processes remain democratic, transparent and consistent with constitutional principles.
He added, “Electoral laws should promote democratic participation, strengthen political institutions and advance the national interest rather than create avoidable obstacles to effective political competition.”
The council also raised concerns about the confusion generated by conflicting court judgments on INEC’s powers to regulate and fix timelines for party primaries, saying the contradictory rulings had introduced avoidable uncertainty into the democratic process and eroded public confidence.
IPAC further flagged difficulties encountered by parties in submitting updated membership registers that included National Identification Numbers (NIN) within a compressed timeframe, saying many genuine party members were inadvertently excluded as a result.
On the political climate, Dantalle condemned recent incidents of political violence in Osun State, urging all political actors to embrace issue‑based campaigns and reject violence, intimidation, hate speech and political extremism ahead of the forthcoming governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun States and the 2027 General Election.
“No political ambition is worth the loss of human life, the destruction of property or the destabilisation of communities,” he said. He called on security agencies to discharge their responsibilities with professionalism and neutrality throughout the electoral cycle.
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