The Peering Advocacy and Advancement Centre in Africa (PAACA) has said that the majority of electoral crises in Nigeria are instigated by political actors rather than the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The organisation urged Nigerians to shift scrutiny to political parties and their candidate selection processes ahead of the 2027 general election.

Executive Director of PAACA, Ezenwa Nwagwu, said in a statement on Friday in Abuja that about 60 per cent of electoral disputes and crises are orchestrated by politicians, who often manipulate internal party processes and undermine electoral rules, only to blame election administrators when conflicts arise.

Nwagwu spoke as the National Assembly prepares to resume deliberations on electoral reforms and possible amendments to the Electoral Act.

According to him, public attention has been disproportionately focused on INEC, while the role of political parties in producing flawed elections through poor internal democracy has been largely ignored.

“Nigerians underestimate the role political parties play in the outcome of secondary elections. If the primary elections are bad, the outcome will reflect in the main elections.

“Ninety percent of the challenges we have in our elections are due to lack of internal democracy – imposition of candidates, absence of genuine contest, and lack of competition within parties,” Nwagwu said.

He added that lack of internal democracy manifested through imposition of candidates, absence of genuine contests and weak competition within parties accounts for most election-related challenges in the country.

“The challenge is that we are fixated on the election administrator, whose job is simply to conduct elections. But politicians often go behind the scenes to compromise officials and subvert the rules. When crises erupt, INEC becomes the scapegoat,” Nwagwu said.

He called on citizens and civil society groups to pay closer attention to internal party activities, including the wave of defections and how they affect cohesion and stability within parties.

Nwagwu stressed that meaningful reform must go beyond frequent amendments to electoral laws, insisting that politicians must change their attitudes towards democracy and elections.

“The selection of leaders is a sacred responsibility entrusted to political parties. INEC does not present candidates; parties do. Sometimes they even present unqualified candidates, and the matter ends up in court.

“We may have the best laws on paper, but at the end of the day, it comes down to the attitude of politicians. Those who make the laws often return to study how to subvert them,” he said.

He warned that as preparations for the 2027 elections intensify, politicians would increasingly attempt to dominate public discourse and divert attention from substantive governance issues.

“From February, we will begin to see the polity heat up. Politicians have mastered the art of distraction, and citizens must not allow them to control the narrative.

“As citizens, we must ask critical questions: how have these leaders improved lives in health, education and the economy?” he said.

He also criticised lawmakers who return to their constituencies during holidays to distribute food items without engaging constituents on their legislative performance.

“Many went home to share rice, but none held town hall meetings to explain how they have been representing their people in Abuja,” he said.

On electoral reforms, Nwagwu identified result management and collation as critical areas requiring urgent attention, clarifying that the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) does not amount to electronic collation.

He further called for the expansion of Nigeria’s democratic space through reforms such as reserved seats for women, diaspora voting and early voting.

Lamenting the absence of ideological competition in the country’s political landscape, Nwagwu said Nigeria has opposition figures, not opposition parties.

“The real challenge is collation. We need a system that allows electronic collation of results from polling units to local governments.

“Most of them offer no alternative economic vision. What we see repeatedly is the same IMF-driven agenda of privatisation, regardless of which party is in power,” he added.