By Dr. Pedro Obaseki
The politicians have crossed the stage. Party flags have been handed over. Winners have been declared, and candidates’ names submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC. For Nigeria’s political parties, the 2027 primaries are finished.
The legal questions they left behind are not. The confetti has been swept away; the paperwork has not.
On 24 September 2026, the Supreme Court overturned the Court of Appeal’s decision striking down key provisions of the Electoral Act 2026. It restored sections 77(5), (6) and (7), governing the membership register used for primaries, congresses and conventions. It also restored section 84(2), which provides for candidate nomination by direct primary or consensus. The same court, on the same day, dismissed the Social Democratic Party’s appeal against INEC’s election guidelines and struck out the Youth Party’s appeal for arriving one day late. It was a bad day to be late.
The Court has not imposed a new rule on primaries already held. These provisions were in the Act when parties chose their candidates. Their validity became the subject of litigation, and the Supreme Court has now settled that challenge. What remains open to challenge is whether parties complied with them.
The calendar makes the point plainly. The Act was signed in February. INEC fixed 23 April to 30 May as the window for primaries, and parties held their contests largely within it. On 5 May, with that season already under way, the Federal High Court in Abuja dismissed the challenge to these very provisions. The Court of Appeal did not void them until 16 July, after the primaries had ended and parties had begun forwarding their candidates to INEC. Some candidates now argue that the ruling cannot reach back to processes concluded under the rules then in force. But the rules then in force were these. The Supreme Court has not moved the goalposts; it has returned the posts the Court of Appeal briefly carried off the pitch.
Section 77 required a party to make its digital membership register available to INEC at least 21 days before the relevant primary, congress or convention. Under the restored provisions, only members named on that register could vote or be voted for. The party could not use a different register for the exercise. If it failed to submit the register within the stipulated period, the Act says it is not eligible to field a candidate for that election.
The decisive evidence, therefore, is neither the photograph of a flag presentation nor the announcement of a primary winner. A flag can be photographed; eligibility must be proved. The proof lies in the register INEC received, the date it received it, and the names it carried.
For a party that complied, those documents are a shield. For one that did not, they may prove a trapdoor beneath a ticket already celebrated.
INEC has supplied part of the answer. In May, it announced that all 22 registered parties had submitted their registers by 8 May, two days before its extended deadline, and said it would subject them to verification. That settles less than it seems. The Act’s clock does not run from INEC’s general deadline; it runs from each party’s own primary. A register had to reach the Commission at least 21 days before the exercise it was meant to govern. A party that filed within INEC’s window but held its primary fewer than 21 days later faces a question the Commission’s announcement does not answer. And a register delivered on time says nothing, by itself, about whose names it contained.
This does not mean that politicians who changed parties are automatically disqualified. Defection is not prohibited by these provisions, and they impose no general waiting period on new members. But an aspirant who joined shortly before a primary may face a serious challenge if their name was absent from the register submitted for that exercise. Publicly joining a party and appearing on its timely filed register are two different things: one is a ceremony, the other a record.
The risks extend beyond late entrants. A long-standing member might have been omitted through error or internal conflict. A party might have beaten INEC’s deadline and still missed its own. It might have kept an accurate register but nominated its candidate by a method inconsistent with section 84(2). Each allegation requires evidence. None is answered merely by pointing to a candidate’s name on INEC’s nomination portal.
There is a democratic case for the register rule. It fixes the electorate before the contest begins, so that the roll cannot be quietly redrawn once the race is under way. An aspirant should know the electorate before entering a contest. An ordinary member should be able to establish their right to participate without pleading with a party official at the venue.
There is a danger, too. A register is a gate, and whoever holds the key decides who walks through to vote and who is left outside, unable to contest. An accurate list protects members; an undisclosed omission silences them. Parties should have given members a fair opportunity to verify and correct their entries before submission. INEC must be able to establish precisely what it received and when, and apply the same standard to every party.
No party can assume the problem belongs only to its rivals. Larger parties have more resources but more names and local records to reconcile. Smaller parties may have simpler structures but less administrative capacity. Parties that absorbed substantial numbers of new members faced particular pressure to process them before their primaries. Those differences may explain a failure. They do not, by themselves, excuse one.
The consequence under section 77(7) is especially grave. Ineligibility to field a candidate is not a fine for untidy paperwork; it is the loss of a place on the ballot. INEC’s May announcement indicates that no party missed its general deadline, but where a register reached the Commission less than 21 days before a party’s primary, the question remains live. Depending on the facts and the outcome of a legal challenge, it could place an already completed nomination in jeopardy.
There is a clock on the challengers, too. The Constitution requires a pre-election suit to be filed within 14 days of the event, decision or action complained of. Most primaries ended in May. For an aspirant who stayed silent then, that door may already have closed, and a restored statute is not obviously a fresh starting gun. The nominations most exposed are those already before the courts in suits filed in time, where the restored provisions now weigh on the scales.
The Supreme Court has not examined every party register or cancelled every primary. It has upheld the statutory provisions. Whether a particular nomination survives scrutiny depends on the relevant documents and a court’s determination of any challenge properly brought before it. No candidate should be condemned by speculation; no party should expect public acclaim to substitute for compliance.
The evidence already exists. The register was submitted on time, or it was not. An aspirant’s name appeared on it, or it did not. Those facts were written in ink months ago, and no victory speech can rewrite them.
The Supreme Court has settled the argument over the rule. The question now is who followed it. The primaries are over; for tickets already before the courts, the consequences may only be beginning.
Dr. Pedro Obaseki is a scholar and political strategist. He is a Director on the ADC/Atiku-Amaechi Presidential Campaign Council.
