Primaries, candidates, litigation, deregistration and the state of the opposition

Wednesday, July 8, 2026

 

Editor’s note. This report maps the state of Nigeria’s main parties roughly eight months before the 2027 general elections. Several of the most serious charges here — INEC bias, judicial overreach, federal interference, threats to opposition figures — are contested political allegations, chiefly advanced by opposition parties and civil-society voices and denied by the government, INEC and the judiciary. Where that is so, the report attributes claims to those making them rather than asserting them as settled fact. Dates and figures are as reported on or before July 8, 2026, and remain fluid as primaries, uploads and court cases proceed.

Overview: a fractured field racing a deadline

As the July 11 deadline for uploading candidates to INEC’s portal approaches, Nigeria’s party system presents a study in contrasts. The ruling All Progressives Congress is proceeding relatively smoothly despite hundreds of internal petitions, while most of the opposition is mired in factional disputes, multiple presidential claimants, detentions and a wave of litigation. Reporting describes the opposition’s ambition to unseat President Bola Tinubu as “in disarray,” with several leading parties fielding rival candidates from competing factions.

All Progressives Congress (APC)

The ruling party, chaired by Prof. Nentawe Yilwatda, held its primaries in May 2026 and says its candidate upload is proceeding “seamlessly.” President Tinubu is the presumptive presidential flag-bearer for a second term, and 21 APC governors have publicly endorsed his re-election. The party’s process was not friction-free: its National Working Committee submitted a revised list that dropped six senatorial and 19 House of Representatives candidates who had won May primaries, and party spokesman Felix Morka acknowledged more than 700 petitions from aggrieved members. Several prominent figures, including four serving governors, cleared the process to contest Senate seats. The APC maintains its nomination was transparent, fair and credible.

 

Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)

The former ruling party remains split into two camps: a National Working Committee that at various points coalesced around former President Goodluck Jonathan as sole aspirant, and a faction aligned with FCT Minister Nyesom Wike that advanced Senator Sandy Onor, with Senator Sandy Onor and Senator Samuel Anyanwu among the names circulating. The internal war has been bitter — Senate President Godswill Akpabio publicly chided Wike over the party’s condition — and the PDP has haemorrhaged figures to both the APC and the ADC coalition. Jonathan has separately had to deny a report that he was offered ₦500 billion to split Peter Obi’s votes; party loyalists insist the PDP is alive and that Jonathan will be on the ballot.

 

Labour Party (LP) and the Obi movement

The Labour Party, which carried Peter Obi’s insurgent 2023 campaign, has been weakened by its own leadership tussles and by Obi’s pivot to the opposition coalition. Obi is now positioned as the sole presidential aspirant of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) — a newer platform — with primaries that were fixed for late May. That migration leaves the LP diminished as an independent force, and raises the question of which vehicle the “Obidient” bloc ultimately rallies behind in 2027.

 

African Democratic Congress (ADC): the coalition and its crises

The ADC has become the chosen platform for a broad anti-Tinubu coalition drawing in figures such as Atiku Abubakar, Rotimi Amaechi, Nasir El-Rufai and Rauf Aregbesola. It held nationwide presidential primaries choosing among Atiku, Amaechi and Mohammed Hayattu-Deen, and portrayed itself as the only party practising genuine internal democracy — pointedly mocking rivals that “jump from 3 to 30” when counting votes. But the ADC is fighting on multiple fronts at once.

Leadership dispute

A Senator David Mark-led National Working Committee is the faction recognised on INEC’s website, but a rival group announced its dissolution and declared Dumebi Kachikwu its consensus candidate. The Mark faction petitioned the Supreme Court, warning that without a timely judgment the party risked being excluded from the 2027 election, and sought orders barring INEC from recognising any other leadership.

Deregistration threat

The ADC is the lead respondent in the most consequential party-survival case of the cycle (see litigation section), and El-Rufai, one of its most prominent members, has been in extended detention. The party frames both as evidence of a coordinated effort to break the opposition.

 

Smaller parties: NNPP, SDP, NDC, Accord and others

The New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) has openly admitted internal problems and uncertainty over its candidate upload. The Social Democratic Party (SDP) has been caught in the same factional snarl as the PDP and ADC. Among the few orderly cases, the NDC has Peter Obi as sole aspirant and Accord has businessman Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim as its lone presidential hopeful. Several small parties — Accord, Action Alliance (AA), Action Peoples Party (APP) and Zenith Labour Party (ZLP) — are, with the ADC, fighting deregistration.

 

The litigation wall: deregistration, timetable and recognition

Deregistration of the ADC and four others

In a June 15 judgment in suit FHC/ABJ/CS/2637/2026, Federal High Court Justice Peter Lifu ordered INEC to deregister the ADC, Accord, AA, APP and ZLP, holding they failed the Section 225A constitutional threshold (25% of votes in a state in a presidential poll, or at least one elected seat). The suit was brought by the National Forum of Former Legislators and backed by the Attorney-General of the Federation. Notably, INEC itself opposed the move, saying the parties met the requirements and providing evidence — a rare instance of the commission defending opposition parties. The Court of Appeal stayed the judgment on June 16, sharply criticising the trial judge for disregarding judicial hierarchy — language later characterised as “judicial impertinence” and “judicial rascality.” The substantive appeal has been adjourned to July 14.

The election-timetable cases

In the cycle’s most consequential procedural fight, the Youth Party challenged INEC’s revised timetable (FHC/ABJ/CS/517/2026), and the Federal High Court held that INEC had exceeded its statutory powers by shortening timelines guaranteed under the Electoral Act — covering primaries, membership registers, nomination, withdrawal and substitution of candidates. INEC appealed, arguing the timetable is an “integrated programme” whose isolated timelines cannot be severed without creating chaos; the Court of Appeal has reserved judgment. A related SDP suit (FHC/ABJ/CS/720/2026) and a challenge to the NDC’s registration (FHC/ABJ/CS/1115/2026) are also pending. PUNCH counts at least six major legal hurdles before INEC ahead of the polls.

 

Allegations of judicial overreach and ‘spurious’ judgments

Opposition and some civil-society figures argue that courts are increasingly deciding internal party matters — leadership, candidate lists, recognition — that ought to be settled within parties or at the ballot, and point to conflicting High Court rulings and the appellate rebuke of Justice Lifu as evidence of inconsistency. In a striking illustration of how sharp the judiciary-vs-litigant clashes have become, a Federal High Court ordered an ADC official to pay ₦100 million (₦50 million each to two judges) for a suit accusing them of bias. Supporters of the process counter that the courts are enforcing plain constitutional requirements and curbing party impunity. Both readings are live in the public debate.

 

Complaints of INEC bias

INEC occupies an unusual position this cycle. Opposition parties have at various points accused it of bias and of adopting an onerous portal-upload method that smaller parties say disadvantages them. Yet in the deregistration suit the commission actively defended the threatened opposition parties, and it is INEC’s own revised timetable that the courts partly struck down. The net picture is contested: critics see an umpire too deferential to federal pressure, while INEC casts itself as defending due process and administrative coherence. No finding of proven partisan misconduct has been established in the reporting reviewed here.

 

Federal interference, detentions and threats: the opposition’s case

The most serious allegations concern the treatment of opposition figures. The central case is that of former Kaduna governor Nasir El-Rufai, an ADC leader, who has been in extended detention since February 2026 across EFCC, ICPC and DSS processes — including an ₦423–432 billion Kaduna-era corruption probe and a separate DSS cybercrime charge (FHC/ABJ/CR/99/2026) alleging he unlawfully intercepted the National Security Adviser’s phone communications. El-Rufai denies wrongdoing and is seeking ₦2 billion in damages against the DSS for what he calls abuse of process. His family and party allege denial of medical access, food and visitors; the ICPC insists his detention is lawful and dismissed ill-health claims.

Opposition leaders, and even a former media aide to the late President Buhari, cast this as part of a pattern also said to include the earlier arrest of former Attorney-General Abubakar Malami — arguing that state machinery is being weaponised to silence Tinubu’s challengers, allegedly with an implicit path to freedom via returning to the APC or quitting politics. The ADC has called it an attempt “to break the opposition spirit.” El-Rufai’s allies have hired a Washington advocacy firm to internationalise the case. The government’s position is that these are ordinary law-enforcement and anti-corruption matters pursued on their merits, not political persecution. Claims of direct threats to the lives of opposition presidential aspirants circulate within this atmosphere but are, in the material reviewed, assertions by opposition actors rather than independently established fact — and should be treated with due caution.

 

State police and the shifting security architecture

Cutting across party lines is the revived push for state police. President Tinubu has inaugurated a presidential panel to draft a national policing bill that would give legal backing to sub-national forces — a reform long debated as a response to banditry, terrorism and kidnapping. Supporters see decentralised policing as essential to security; sceptics, including some opposition voices, worry that in a charged pre-election climate state police could be turned into instruments of incumbent power. The bill’s drafting is at an early stage.

 

Outlook

Three things will shape the next phase. First, the July 11 upload deadline and the reserved timetable appeal will determine which candidates and timelines are even valid. Second, the July 14 deregistration appeal will decide whether the ADC-led coalition and four smaller parties survive to contest at all. Third, the resolution of the ADC leadership dispute at the Supreme Court, and the fate of detained figures like El-Rufai, will signal whether the 2027 contest is fought on a level field. The opposition’s overarching claim is that primaries, courts and security agencies are being aligned against it; the government’s is that it is enforcing law and constitutional standards. Which narrative prevails may matter as much to the credibility of 2027 as the votes themselves.