• Ruling restores disputed Electoral Act provisions
The Independent National Electoral Commission has warned that political parties that field candidates whose names were not contained in their membership registers submitted to the commission could be barred from participating in the affected elections in 2027.
INEC National Commissioner for Information and Voter Education, Mohammed Haruna, gave the warning on Wednesday while speaking on Trust TV’s Daily Politics, saying the commission would not allow parties to benefit from violations of the Electoral Act 2026.
Haruna said parties would also not be permitted to substitute candidates affected by such breaches, arguing that allowing substitution could enable a party to benefit from an offence it had committed.
His comments came against the backdrop of the Supreme Court’s September 24 judgment restoring key provisions of the Electoral Act 2026 governing party membership registers and candidate nomination.
The apex court had overturned a July judgment of the Court of Appeal which declared Sections 77(5), 77(6), 77(7) and 84(2) of the Electoral Act unconstitutional. The Supreme Court restored the earlier Federal High Court decision upholding the provisions.
INEC awaits legal advice
Haruna said INEC was still studying the certified true copy of the Supreme Court judgment and consulting its legal experts before making a definitive pronouncement.
He said the commission expected to conclude the process by Tuesday next week.
According to him, INEC had to be particularly cautious because it had encountered cases where purported copies of court judgments were forged.
“We have to be very careful to make sure that when you took us, we did put a lot of pressure and we were able to get it yesterday,” he said.
Haruna said the commission would then determine the practical implications of the judgment for candidates and political parties.
He warned that the consequences could extend across the ballot.
“Some parties may not be able to finish with even governorship candidates,” he said.
He explained that the membership-register requirement applied to candidates contesting from the presidential level down to the state Houses of Assembly.
“All the candidates, all the way to the Houses of Assembly, we interviewed them. If their names are not on the party register, they were not members of the party at the time that they contested for those tickets,” he said.
No benefit from electoral breach
Haruna drew parallels with previous disputes in Zamfara and Plateau, where parties faced consequences over failures linked to candidate nominations.
He said a party should not be allowed to commit an electoral offence and subsequently benefit from it by replacing the affected candidate.
“It’s like you committed an offence. And then, you come and benefit from it,” he said.
“You are benefiting from it if you are able to substitute a candidate.”
The warning could potentially create fresh uncertainty for political parties and candidates ahead of the 2027 elections, particularly where membership records submitted to INEC differ from the identities of those who emerged from party primaries.
However, the Supreme Court judgment itself did not make factual findings on the membership status of individual candidates. Legal experts have therefore distinguished between affirming the constitutionality of the provisions and automatically invalidating particular candidacies.
What the Supreme Court restored
The disputed provisions centre largely on the relationship between political parties, their membership registers and INEC.
Sections 77(5), 77(6) and 77(7) deal with the use and submission of party membership registers and the consequences of non-compliance, while Section 84(2) concerns methods of candidate nomination.
The provisions had become the subject of a major legal battle after the Zenith Labour Party challenged their constitutionality at the Federal High Court.
The Federal High Court dismissed the challenge in May. The Court of Appeal subsequently overturned that decision in July and declared the disputed provisions unconstitutional.
INEC appealed, leading to the Supreme Court’s September 24 judgment restoring the Federal High Court decision.
The ruling has since triggered renewed questions over the status of candidates whose party membership or nomination records may not align with registers submitted to INEC.
The House of Representatives Committee on Electoral Matters has already urged INEC to audit candidates submitted by political parties and disqualify those whose names are not contained in the relevant membership registers.
Campaign threats worry INEC
Beyond the legal controversy, Haruna expressed concern over the tone of political campaigns ahead of the 2027 elections, particularly the use of threats by political actors.
He said threatening language and actions by politicians were worrying, regardless of which party was involved.
“Those kind of things, even if it’s a minority, it’s a cause for concern, because nobody should be threatened at all,” he said.
Haruna stressed that the concern extended beyond INEC and should matter to all political parties and Nigerians, including the ruling party.
INEC races against time
With the 2027 elections drawing closer, Haruna said INEC was also working to secure the funding required to conduct the polls.
The commission, he said, no longer had the luxury of time.
The current INEC timetable lists January 16, 2027 for the presidential and National Assembly elections, while governorship and state House of Assembly elections are scheduled for February 6, 2027.
The commission’s handling of the Supreme Court judgment could therefore have significant implications for parties already preparing for the elections.
For now, INEC’s final position is pending its legal review of the certified judgment.
But Haruna’s warning has already put political parties on notice: membership registers submitted to INEC could become a decisive test of who is eligible to fly their parties’ flags in the 2027 elections.
