The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), last Friday, opened its portal for political parties to upload the particulars of their candidates for next year’s general election.
But for most of aspirants, who contested the primaries of their political parties, particularly those contesting legislative positions in the National and House of Assemblies, it is a mixed feeling.
Unlike what has been the tradition where successful aspirants were issued certificate of return and given the INEC’s nomination forms to fill and return to the party headquarters to upload on the Commission’s portal, the lists of successful aspirants were not even published to members of the public by many parties.
Except the Labour Party, none of the leading political parties have published lists of candidates, who emerged from the parties. The LP said it has cleared a total of 1,211 candidates to contest the 2027 general election on its platform.
The breakdown includes one presidential candidate, 28 governorship, 99 senatorial, 307 House of Representatives and 776 state House of Assembly candidates. The list was ratified by Labour Party National Executive Committee (NEC) on June 28.
The failure of other political parties to publish the list of their candidates is creating anxiety and uncertainty among the aspirants. Sunday Telegraph reported about two weeks ago of disaffection in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), over the failure of most serving Senators and members of House of Representatives to secure the party’s ticket to seek reelection in 2027.
President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, said this much when he declared at the inauguration of the APC National Campaign Council for the Ekiti governorship election, that some of the lawmakers had developed high blood pressure.
“The party is supreme. I’m only pleading with the party to ensure that when they release their final list, they include all of us. Some of my people have hypertension,” Akpabio pleaded to the party leadership.
APC’s National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, admitted that publishing the list of the successful candidates would create a lot of problem to the party, and instead, favours publishing the list “on INEC’s website, where everyone will check for their name.”
The African Democatic Congress (ADC) and the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) candidates are also facing the same challenge. Some of the aspirants had openly condemned the conduct of the primaries and accused the party leadership of manipulating the process.
The case of the Peoples Democratic Party is however different. Both the Nyesom Wike and Kabiru Tanimu Turaki factions have issued certificates of return to their elected candidates. It is however the Wike faction that is recognised by the INEC.
RadarrNews gathered that the reason the lists of the candidates were not published might not be unconnected with the likely backlash the list might generate.
An aspirant, who craved anonymity, said the leaderships of the affected parties could afford to withhold the list of candidates because of the mode of primaries prescribed by the Electoral Act, 2026.
“Except where concensus was adopted, it is only the party leadership that will determine who wins in direct primary. “The primaries are conducted in different constituencies, unlike the indirect primary where all the delegates will gather in one location to vote.
“You will know from the beginning the number of delegates and the number of votes. There will be no room to inflate the number to favour a preferred aspirant. I’m not saying that it cannot be manipulated but you can contest the figures at the appeal committee level.
“You can’t say that of direct primaries. That is why you hear strange figures during the counting. And there is no means of verifying it because no vote was cast,” he said.
A former Minister and Senator in Lagos State told Sunday Telegraph that what happened across APC states was a serious sham. He said in many states, members of the party did not know who was picked as lists came from top party leaders, even against the wishes of members.
“There was no election anywhere. What you saw was a charade. I know somebody who scored 37,000 in the primaries but the person announced scored 2,000 votes.
“So, what do you call that? The idea of concensus and direct primary are setbacks to the gains we made previously. As it is now, it is only when you see your name on INEC’s website that you can say you contested or won.”
