The former National Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission in charge of Information and Voter Education has told the Commission that if it is going to enforce the Supreme Court’s judgment on party membership registers, it must enforce it against everybody.
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Festus Okoye, a legal practitioner, was speaking about the controversy generated by the Commission’s publication of the final lists of candidates for the 2027 general election.
“My position is that if INEC must enforce the judgment it must be enforced across board.”
Mr. Okoye began with the Commission’s own schedule.
“On the 26th day of February 2026, the Independent National Electoral Commission released what it called the revised timetable and schedule of activities for the conduct of the 2027 general elections.”
“The revised timetable states that the final list of presidential and National Assembly candidates shall be published by INEC on the 12th day of September 2026, while that of governorship and state Assembly candidates shall be published on the 10th day of October 2026. That was exactly what happened.”
He said the publication accorded with section 32 of the Electoral Act 2026, under which the Commission shall, at least 60 days before an election, publish at its offices and on its website a statement of the full names and addresses of all candidates nominated.
And he set out the complaint route the Act provides.
“Section 32 also provides that a registered political party that observes that the name of each candidate is missing on the list published in accordance with subsection 1 of section 32 shall notify INEC in writing signed by the national chairman and secretary supported with an affidavit within 14 days after the publication. It states that failure to notify INEC in accordance with Subsection 2 shall not be a ground to invalidate an election that has been conducted.”
“The big challenge is that the commission in releasing the final list of duly nominated candidates stated that it had excluded the names submitted by some of the parties who did not comply with the intent and with the provisions of section 77 of the Electoral Act. Now, section 77 of the Electoral Act is very clear.”
He set out the obligations.
“Section 77 states that a party shall maintain a digital register of its members containing the name, sex, date of birth, address, state, local government, ward, polling unit, national identification number and photograph of its members in hard and soft copies, and it says that upon registration, a membership card shall be issued to the member.”
“Section 77 Subsection 4 states that each party shall make such register available to INEC not later than 21 days before the date fixed for party primaries, congresses or conventions, and it added that only members whose names are contained in the register shall be eligible to vote and be voted for in party primaries, congresses or conventions.”
“The operative word here is only members whose names are contained in the register shall be eligible to vote and be voted for, and it says the party shall not use any other register for its primaries, congresses and conventions except the register submitted to the commission.”
“It also stated that a party that fails to submit the membership register within the stipulated time shall not be eligible to field a candidate for that election. I believe that this is a contentious issue.”
He noted that parties alleging exclusion have fourteen days to complain, and that the Commission has said it acted under section 287 of the Constitution, by which decisions of the Supreme Court are to be enforced by all authorities and persons.
“If INEC must enforce the judgment it must be enforced across board. It is immaterial whether the final list of presidential and national assembly candidates was released on the 12th of September 2026 or not, or whether it was that of the governorship and state house of assembly members that was released on the 10th of October 2026.”
“If there has been a violation or non-compliance with any provisions of the Act, and since the Supreme Court has validated Section 77 of the Act saying that it is constitutional and also validated portions of the revised timetable and schedule of activities of INEC, and if it must enforce the judgment, it must be enforced across board. But if a party did not comply with any of the provisions of Section 77, especially the provisions that went to the Supreme Court, and the party has submitted the list of its candidate, such candidate must be removed from the register.”
“It’s immaterial whether the list is final or not final. Since INEC is enforcing the judgment, when you are enforcing it, it’s immaterial whether somebody has finished running the 100 [metre] race or not. So long as the person’s name is still on the register and the person is going to stand for election, the judgment must affect the person.”
He tied the point to post-election litigation.
“If you look at Section 138 of the Electoral Act, it also provides grounds for filing of petition, and it says that an election may be questioned on grounds that it was ‘invalid by reason of practices or non-compliance with the provisions of this Act’. So every party and every candidate is obligated to comply with the provisions of Section 77.”
“If INEC does not remove some names from the register who are ineligible or whose candidature has violated the provisions of the Electoral Act, what that means is that we will still confront the challenge during post-election litigation.”
“In enforcing the provisions of the Act, INEC should try as much as possible to enforce judgments of the Supreme Court across board so that there won’t be any question of selective application or selective judgement.”
Asked whom to blame, he declined to absolve the Commission entirely and pointed to how the law was made.
“No, I’m not absolving the electoral management body of blame. The truth of the matter is that during the making of the Electoral Act 2026, public hearings were organised, political parties made representations, civil society groups and organisations also made representations as well as other critical stakeholders.”
“Section 77 is not an isolated provision of the Electoral Act. If you look at the same Section 77, you will see that a mischief was plugged.”
“What the Supreme Court is saying is that parties violated the provisions of Section 77 with impunity because there was no sanction. They just did whatever they liked. Some of them did not submit their membership register as required by law. Some did not maintain any digital register and so on and so forth.”
“Based on that, the framers of the Electoral Act 2026 decided to provide sanctions for violation of the law. So you will see that the only material difference between Section 77 of the Electoral Act 2022 and Section 77 of the Electoral Act 2026 is in relation to the sanctions.”
“Part of the reasoning was that candidates had no fidelity whatsoever to the party they belong to. Parties became just platforms or special purpose vehicles for contesting elections. So, if you go to party A and you don’t get what they call ticket, you move to party B and you go and get ticket.”
“Aspirants kept on moving from one party to the other in search of ticket, in search of platform. So there was no fidelity whatsoever to the ideas, to the principles and ideology of political parties, and it became necessary to find ways and means of curbing impunity in the Electoral Act to make sure that candidates and aspirants stay in their parties, build them and remain there. That was the intent, and it was also important for the parties to know who their members are.”
“If aspirants are allowed to move from one party to the other at will, it will then be much better for Nigeria to operate what I call a party-less system where we are going to maybe have only independent candidates running elections rather than having a political party sponsoring candidates being the only platform through which people can attain power.”
“What we are witnessing now is bizarre. What we are witnessing now is what I call political opportunism, a situation where an individual will belong to a political party and is campaigning for a different political party. So there is no fidelity whatsoever to the ideas of any of the political parties.”
“If you take the antecedents of some of the leaders of these political parties, you will see that in less than 10 years they have moved between five, six political parties.”
Mr. Okoye said his own preference would have been for the affected aspirants and parties, rather than the Commission, to activate the machinery of the law. He then explained why that route does not work.
He pointed to section 88(2), under which an aspirant who complains that the Act or his party’s guidelines were not complied with in the selection or nomination of a candidate may apply to the Federal High Court for redress, and to section 88(3):
“Where a court finds that a political party failed to comply with the provisions of this Act in the conduct of its primaries, its candidate for that election shall not be included in the election for the particular position in issue.”
And then the question that follows from it.
“So the question I have asked is, as an aspirant, if I observe that there has been a violation of the rules of my party, there has been a violation of the Act, and I go to court, what is my benefit? Section 88, Subsection 3 says you have no benefit, because the candidate of the party will be excluded from the election. So there’s no need to go to court to contest anything.”
“I think that it would have been much better or tidier if INEC allowed aspirants and parties to activate the machinery of the law in terms of enforcing the judgment of the Supreme Court, so that it doesn’t get into the controversy it’s going to get into.”
“But since INEC has stated that it wants to enforce the judgment based on constitutional provisions, I believe that it would be much better and tidier if it can enforce it across board so that there won’t be any element of bias. If any of the parties has violated the provisions of Section 77, it should remove the name of its candidate.”
“But if you remove the name of the candidate of one party that has violated, and people also know that the candidate of another party also violated, and that party’s candidate’s name is still on the list, it becomes a huge perception challenge to INEC.”
“So if it must be enforced, it must be above board, it must be enforced with equity, it must be enforced with good conscience, and it must be enforced without fear or favour and without bias whatsoever.”
Asked whether the Commission and stakeholders should waive the relevant provisions so that no party feels disadvantaged, his answer was categorical.
“No! No individual, group or organisation can waive the provisions of the law. The law is meant to be complied with. The law has stated what should be done and all parties, organs or agencies of government are obligated to respect and implement the provisions of the law.”
He then took the subsections one by one.
“If you look at the wordings of Section 77, you will see that it is worded in mandatory terms. It says each party shall. The ‘shall’ in Section 77 Subsection 4 is mandatory.”
“Section 77 Subsection 5 says only members whose names are contained in the register shall be eligible to vote and be voted for. The ‘shall’ in the above quoted section is mandatory.”
“Section 77 Subsection 6 says a party shall not. The ‘shall’ in Section 77 Subsection 6 is mandatory.”
“Section 77 Subsection 7 says a party that fails to submit the membership register within the stipulated time shall not be eligible. The ‘shall’ in Section 77 Subsection 7 is mandatory.”
“So no individual, no group, no organisation, no commission is permitted to waive the provisions of the Act, especially when such provisions are couched in mandatory terms.”
“This provision has gone to the highest court in the land and the Supreme Court has said Section 77 of the Act is constitutional, that it does not violate any provisions of the Constitution, and that political parties, INEC and all aspirants and candidates are obligated to enforce the provisions of the law. So nobody can waive the provisions of the law.”
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