THE NOMINATION OF CANDIDATES The process of nomination should be transparent and credible
In strict compliance with the guidelines and timetable of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the 2027 general election, political parties in the country have commenced the process for nominating candidates for various offices. These public offices include national and state assemblies, governorship, and the presidency. The outcome of these primaries, especially in the leading political parties, will offer Nigerians glimpses of what to expect at the election proper and the kind of leaders to emerge. But from field reports, it would seem that imposition of candidates under the pretext of ‘consensus’ is now so commonplace that it could disfigure the coming general election.
Until the 2023 general election, candidates of the political parties were nominated strictly by delegates at indirect primaries. But this process produced unfair outcomes as the primaries of all the political parties, big or small, were replete with widespread fraud, monetisation, lack of respect for accountability by sundry godfathers and overbearing governors. Party chiefs and moneybags bought and imposed candidates in what became bazaars only to require the popular electorate to vote for them on a one man one vote basis. Apparently to correct this anomaly, the Ninth National Assembly amended 87(1) of the 2010 Electoral Act to include the option of direct primaries.
