Mayegun GrandMaster Oloriegbe
In the dim corridors of party headquarters in Abuja, where ambitious men once gathered under fluorescent lights to count delegate votes from hard-fought primaries held in late May 2026, a different scene unfolded on June 29, 2026.
Letters bearing the signatures of APC National Chairman Prof. Nentawe Goshwe Yilwatda and National Secretary Senator Surajudeen Ajibola Basiru were dispatched to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). With a stroke of bureaucratic ink, approximately 26 winners of monitored primaries, senatorial and House of Representatives aspirants across nine states including Benue, Ondo, and Kogi, were quietly replaced.
Among them fell former Benue State Governor Gabriel Suswam, ex-lawmaker Gbenga Elegbeleye and Dr Taiwo Fashoranti, the Scion of the Afenifere leader, Pa Reuben Fashoranti. What should have been the solemn affirmation of the people’s choice inside the polling units became, instead, the quiet annulment of democratic will by party fiat.
APC Scribe, Senator Basiru, had earlier been seen in a widely circulated video boasting that votes cast during the primaries would not matter, but rather that the outcome would be determined by the stroke of the pen of the NWC.
That perhaps explains the deeper rot afflicting Nigeria’s electoral democracy. Not the chaos of polling day, but the calculated subversion that precedes it, when the very guardians of the process treat the ballot as private property to be reassigned at convenience.
Nigeria has walked this path before. Recall the bitter lessons of the 2023 general elections, where placeholder candidacies and last-minute substitutions dragged disputes all the way to the Supreme Court. The Electoral Act 2022 was enacted precisely to close those floodgates.
Section 33 is unambiguous: a political party shall not be allowed to change or substitute its candidate whose name has been submitted under Section 29, except in the case of death or voluntary withdrawal by the candidate. In such rare instances, a fresh primary must be conducted within 14 days. The law does not contemplate “appeal committees” as a parallel route to override INEC-monitored primary results. Yet here we are in July 2026, with the APC NWC advancing a revised list justified by internal petitions rather than the strict statutory exceptions.
This is not mere internal party housekeeping; it is a direct assault on the constitutional architecture of free and fair elections. The 1999 Constitution (as amended) and the Electoral Act vest sovereignty in the people, exercised through transparent primaries.
When a ruling party substitutes winners with anointed loyalists, often serving senators or handpicked favorites, it replaces the verdict of delegates with the decree of godfathers. Not democracy, but selection. Not representation, but imposition.
Chief Obafemi Awolowo, that titan of Nigerian politics whose Action Group built institutions on principle rather than patronage, warned in his writings of the danger of parties that become “vehicles for personal ambition rather than instruments of public service.” He understood that character is the foundation of leadership.
Today’s powers seem to have inverted this: power first, then the rewriting of rules to sustain it. While they claim fidelity to “party supremacy,” they practice the supremacy of a small cabal over the party’s own democratic processes and the Electoral Act. Not renewal through competition, but retention through substitution. Not the broadening of the tent, but it’s narrowing to exclude voices that dared to win fairly.
The moral argument is stark. Elections are not coronation ceremonies for incumbents or their proxies; they are sacred tests of legitimacy. When the APC, the party that rode to power in 2015 on promises of change and anti-corruption, resorts to post-primary engineering, it erodes public trust at its root.
Citizens watch not merely as spectators but as stakeholders whose consent is being manufactured rather than earned. That perhaps explains the growing cynicism: why vote when the real contest occurs in closed rooms after the votes are cast?
INEC Chairman and the Commission have signaled resolve. The electronic nomination portal, strengthened after 2023 litigation, is designed to accept only names matching uploaded primary results. International development partners have urged strict adherence to the law.
This is the line that must not be crossed. INEC must reject any list that fails the statutory test, no fresh primaries, no deaths, no valid withdrawals. Anything less invites the judiciary into another season of protracted pre-election disputes, delaying the entire electoral timetable and undermining the 2027 polls.
The way out lies not in partisan recrimination but in rededication to foundational principles.
First, enforce the Electoral Act without fear or favor. Political parties must conduct genuine primaries, publish results transparently, and submit only compliant lists.
Second, strengthen internal party democracy through enforceable guidelines that limit appeal mechanisms to genuine irregularities, never to override clear primary outcomes.
Third, citizens and civil society must remain vigilant, documenting processes, supporting aggrieved aspirants through lawful court challenges where Section 84(14) of the Act provides redress, and demanding accountability from all parties, not just the ruling one.
History offers both warning and instruction.
On December 12, 1959, as Nigeria approached independence, leaders gathered with a vision of self-rule anchored in justice and representation. By April 1959, electoral commissions had been established to safeguard that promise. Yet time and again, post-independence, we have seen how the subversion of process leads to governance by impunity.
The legacy of great leaders, Awolowo’s intellectual rigor, Ahmadu Bello’s administrative discipline, Nnamdi Azikiwe’s nationalist fervor—was not in holding office, but in the standards they set for it: sacrifice over self, service over substitution, vision over vendetta.
Today, as Nigeria prepares for 2027, the APC’s actions pose a test not only for INEC but for the republic itself. Will we allow the ballot to be treated as a negotiable instrument, or insist it remain the irreducible voice of the sovereign people?
Leaders and citizens alike must now be measured by a single, uncompromising standard: fidelity to democratic institutions above partisan convenience. Character is not what one claims in victory speeches; it is what one upholds when power is at stake.
The true test of leadership is not the ability to win primaries, but the courage to accept their results, even when they discomfort the powerful. Anything less is not statesmanship; it is stewardship of decline. Nigeria deserves better.
The law demands it. History will judge those who choose otherwise.
Oloriegbe is a member of The Progressive Counsel (TPC)