• Atiku campaign alleges INEC bias towards APC as ADC vows to bar rigging
• 84% of Nigerians willing to vote, 61% fear violence’

Presidential candidate of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), Donald Duke, has predicted that President Bola Tinubu will be re-elected in 2027 if leading opposition candidates fail to unite.

This was as the Atiku Abubakar 2027 Presidential Campaign cautioned the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) against tilting the electoral process in favour of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), warning that the credibility of the 2027 general elections would depend largely on the commission’s neutrality and transparency.

Meanwhile, the National Chairman of African Democratic Congress (ADC), David Mark, declared that the party would not allow itself to be rigged out in the coming elections.

A new survey by Yiaga Africa has found that 84 per cent of Nigerians are likely or very likely to vote in the next general elections, although fears of violence, distrust in electoral institutions and vote buying could undermine turnout.

Duke said the split opposition vote between Atiku of the Africa Democratic Congress (ADC) and Obi of Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) could put Tinubu at a vantage position in January’s presidential ballot.

He spoke yesterday on Channels Television’s ‘Morning Brief’ while discussing the chances of opposition candidates in the 2027 presidential election.

The former governor of Cross River State said the opposition would struggle to defeat the ruling party if major contenders continued to pursue separate presidential bids.

“We don’t understand what we’re doing. In the United States, which is the system we’ve largely just copied verbatim from, they have two major parties. If you fragment the Democrats, for instance, into two or three other parties, the Republicans will remain in office forever. That’s what we’re doing,” he said.

According to Duke, divisions among major opposition figures in 2023 spread votes among different candidates.

The Atiku campaign council also urged the electoral body to ensure that eligible Nigerians who register as voters are able to collect their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs), stressing that registration figures would be meaningless without corresponding PVC collection.

Making its position known yesterday in a statement signed by its Director of Media and Publicity, Kola Ologbondiyan, in reaction to INEC’s World Press Conference held on Tuesday, the council said its presidential candidate remains prepared to participate in the 2027 election, provided INEC guarantees a credible election devoid of violence or manipulation.

Ologbondiyan said the commission must demonstrate its independence by resisting any attempt by the ruling party to influence its decisions or operations.

According to him, the publication of impressive voter registration figures would serve little purpose if registered voters are subsequently unable to obtain their PVCs.

“Reading out figures of registration is nothing; what matters is the number of cards actually collected by Nigerians. What gives a citizen power on election day is not that his name is in a register somewhere, but that he has his PVC in his hand.”

The campaign council expressed concern over alleged bureaucratic bottlenecks and delays at PVC collection centres, particularly in areas considered strongholds of opposition parties.

It urged INEC to ensure that no Nigerian is disenfranchised through administrative obstacles, deliberate delays or unequal access to voter cards.

“We are carefully watching every step of INEC. Nigerians and the international community do too. The commission should stay neutral, as no institution should push Nigerians to the wall by compromising the electoral process,” he added.

Ologbondiyan said Nigerians had endured enormous hardship and could not afford another election compromised by manipulation or institutional bias.

It called on the INEC Chairman, Prof. Joash Amupitan, to decentralise PVC collection to the ward level, extend collection hours and deploy technology to notify voters when their cards are ready for collection.

Mark disclosed ADC’s no-rigging stance, yesterday, during a courtesy visit by the Governing Council of the Savannah Centre for Diplomacy, Democracy and Development to the party’s headquarters in Abuja.

The governing council, led by the former Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Olukayode Ariwoola, said the courtesy call was part of the centre’s ongoing stakeholder engagements with political parties and political leaders ahead of the 2027 general elections.

The retired CJN expressed the centre’s commitment to credible elections and urged the ADC leadership to encourage its candidates and members to comply with INEC rules and eschew all forms of political violence.

In his response, Mark emphasised ADC’s commitment to playing by the rules and as much as possible promote public confidence.

“We hold ourselves to the highest standards of good conduct as a political party. We will play by the rules. But we will not accept rigging or allow ourselves to be rigged out,” he added.

THE third round of Yiaga Africa’s National Voting Intentions Survey (NVIS 3.0), released yesterday, showed that while voter intention increased from 73 per cent in March 2026 to 84 per cent in September, confidence in INEC had fallen.

According to the survey, only 34 per cent of respondents are confident that INEC will conduct credible elections, compared with 45 per cent recorded in each of the two previous rounds of the survey.

The report, entitled ‘Willing but Wary: How Nigerians Intend to Vote in 2027’, is based on interviews with 2,470 Nigerians aged 18 and above across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

The interviews were conducted in September 2026 through telephone calls and, for the first time, face-to-face engagements in rural communities.

The survey identified insecurity as the biggest potential barrier to voter turnout, with 61 per cent of respondents saying fear of violence could prevent them from voting.

Yiaga Africa said the findings show that Nigerians remained interested in participating in elections, but that willingness might not translate into actual turnout without improvements in security and confidence in the electoral process.