Political parties may lose candidates for the 2027 general elections if the names of those candidates were not contained in the membership registers submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
The commission also said affected parties would not be allowed to substitute such candidates, stressing that no political party should benefit from violating the electoral law.
INEC National Commissioner for Information and Voter Education, Mohammed Haruna, disclosed this on Wednesday while speaking on Trust TV’s Daily Politics programme.
His comments followed the Supreme Court’s September 24, 2026 judgment, which affirmed the constitutionality of Sections 77(5), 77(6) and 77(7) of the Electoral Act 2026 and upheld INEC’s revised timetable and schedule of activities for the 2027 general elections.
Haruna said INEC was reviewing the implications of the judgment and would make a definitive pronouncement by Tuesday next week.
He explained that parties whose candidates were affected by the membership register provisions could not circumvent the law by replacing those candidates with others.
“It’s like you committed an offence. And then, you come and benefit from it. You remember cases that we had of some in Zamfara, you remember Plateau? The same thing.
“The parties, because they did the wrong thing, they thought they could now steal through the candidates.
“And the law was very clear. Once you do that kind of thing, you cannot benefit from it. You are benefiting from it if you are able to substitute a candidate,” he said.
According to Haruna, the implications could extend to candidates contesting from the National Assembly to the state Houses of Assembly, depending on the outcome of the commission’s review.
“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.
Haruna said the commission was yet to reach a final position because it had to obtain legal advice after receiving the Certified True Copy of the Supreme Court judgment.
He said INEC was also being cautious because of previous instances in which forged court judgments had been presented to the commission.
“You can’t be too careful with these things because even when you see copies and they tell you it’s a CTC, it may be forged. We’ve seen instances where people have even gone, have the audacity to forge a Supreme Court judgment.
“So, 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 (Tuesday),” he said.
The commission is expected to announce its position after completing its legal review of the judgment, with the outcome potentially determining the eligibility of some candidates to participate in the 2027 elections.
