Buba Galadima, outspoken chieftain of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), drew attention to the development whereby opposition candidates were being paid off to drop their 2027 electoral ambition. He alleged that the candidates of other parties were bought with huge sums to step down for the candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

According to him, the APC was buying up opposition candidates at state and federal levels with cash sums ranging from N50 million to 200 million, together with vehicles, to forfeit their tickets for 2027 elections. He spoke on October 7, 2026, on Arise Television’s Prime Time programme. Galadima’s whistleblowing sounded like some fiction at first, but with time, it began to make some sense.

Just days after, the candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), for the House of Representatives and Senate in the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, stepped down for APC candidates at a ceremony organised by the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike. The candidates are; Gomna Stephen Gashe (Abaji/Gwagwalada/Kwali/Kuje), Ahmed Dogara Jacob (Municipal/Bwari), and Angulu Bako (Senate).

Speaking at his Rainbow Coalition meeting, Wike, the sole administrator of PDP, boasted that he was willing to concede the FCT National Assembly seats to APC because President Bola Tinubu resides in the territory. Wike called himself the “commander of field operations” of Tinubu’s re-election campaign in FCT, and said members of his coalition and APC were working towards a common presidential objective.

Hear him: “Ordinarily, as the national leader of the PDP, I should have told them to allow me to take one. But because the president resides here (FCT), he lives here. I don’t want to share anything with the president. Take senator and the two House of Representatives seats. But in my state (Rivers), I will take small.” Then the PDP candidates pledged their loyalty to Wike and promised to abandon their tickets.

Before the primaries, aspirants belonging to the same party are allowed to negotiate and decide who may step down, on the basis of electoral strength and capacity to win the primary and also the main election.

The leadership of a party could take it upon itself to broker such negotiation. But after parties have submitted names of candidates to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), it is not democratically decent to have candidates of one party openly declare their support for rival candidates of another party.

Wike’s open infractions send wrong signals about what democracy is not. He has arrogated to himself the power to field candidates for electoral officers. That power belongs to the political party and was not intended for an individual to exercise. Where is the NWC and the national executives of Wike’s PDP, where crucial party decisions are ratified? Where are the judges that give judgments in favour of one-man rule against the larger PDP? When this democracy enters recession, let it be clear that those who enabled Wike are responsible. It is not part of the rules for one man to hijack a political party, to dispense favours to friends and punishment to foes. That’s not the intention of the party system.

INEC’s party membership trap
Section 77 of the Electoral Act requires parties to maintain a digital and physical register of members. They are to submit the registers to INEC at least 21 days before primaries. It used to be 30 days. Due to instabilities in parties, some had to rush to meet the 21-days deadline. Only APC made it in record time and seamlessly. Penalties for failure to comply within time could disqualify a party from fielding candidates.

There is a contention that mischief was intended in the amendment of Section 77; that it was deliberately crafted to put hurdles in the way of opposition parties and their candidates. In 2023, there was room for aspirants who lose in party primaries to shop for tickets in other parties. The 2026 Electoral Act forecloses that movement if not done within stipulated time. In 2023, the candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, picked the LP ticket in a last-minute arrangement after PDP was out of his reach. The LP came third in that election despite reported electoral manipulations and glitches. Since then, every effort in the books, including this amendment, have been considered to checkmate Obi and the opposition in 2027.

When the African Democratic Congress (ADC), began to gain ground in 2025, it was alleged that bookmakers in the ruling party envisaged Atiku Abubakar to win the ticket of the party in a primary dictated by market forces. They reckoned that as Obi did in 2023, he was likely to pitch tent with another party. The changes inserted in Section 77 were to frustrate aspirants from running around for any available ticket.

If Obi had remained in ADC, he would have had no chance to pick the ticket of NDC. Obi escaped the trap.

But a good number of others did not. The case of Ladi Adebutu of PDP Ogun, Isa Pantami PDP Gombe and Aminu Abdussalam Gwaro of Kano NDC are outstanding. They failed to make INEC’s list of cleared candidates. These are some of the curiosities INEC will have to untie before the final list of candidates is published.

Before then, Nigerians are wondering what may have gone wrong with the candidates when it is clear that their parties met the deadlines. In the case of Adebutu, he had been with the PDP for many years and is not known to have abandoned the party. He was the party’s governorship flagbearer in 2023, where he polled 262,383, against Governor Dapo Abiodun’s 272, 298 votes. That margin gives an idea of how formidable Adebutu is. So, what went wrong?

It is curious that Adebutu, Pantami and Gwarzo, among other cases, are strong contenders with good prospects in their states. Adebutu’s campaign team has blamed APC desperation for his ouster. Their exclusion is suspicious, but INEC has given them 14 days (October 24) to challenge its decision, which it said was based on a Supreme Court judgment in INEC v. Zenith Labour Party, Appeal No. SC/CV/495/2026, delivered on September 24, 2026.

The Supreme Court ruled that:
“Section 77(5) provides that only members whose names appear on a political party’s membership register submitted to INEC at least 21 days before a primary, congress or convention can participate in the exercise.

“Section 77(6) requires political parties to use the membership register submitted to INEC for their primaries, congresses and conventions, while Section 77(7) provides that a party that fails to submit its register within the stipulated period cannot field a candidate in an election.”

It is instructive that among those who prompted INEC to quickly act on the Supreme Court judgment and review its list of candidates were members of the APC and their supporters. The party wrote to INEC on October 9, 2026, demanding immediate enforcement of the judgment. They were eager to see INEC delist candidates who in their suspicion did not meet the deadlines. That seems to validate claims that the electoral act amendment was a set up.

Also, the fact that INEC has given Adebutu, Pantami, Gwarzo and the others 14 days to appeal the omission of their names also suggests that the deadline was a needless punishment. Those 14 days could have been added to the 21 days before parties concluded their primaries. The point is that, laws and court judgments should not be forged with intentions to punish some people. The APC was way ahead in submitting its membership register, at a time other parties were thrown into factional and legal crisis.

Constraining free choice
Political parties help citizens to make up their minds on policy options. It is the reason multi-party democracy recommends a variety of parties, so that voters are not constrained and ultimately disenfranchised.

The APC has been celebrating the conscription of Wike, Ademola Adeleke of Osun State and Charles Soludo of Anambra State into the party’s Presidential Campaign Council. It is a novelty of a sort, to have leading members of what used to be the opposition line up for the ruling party. Wike has declared himself the commander of field operations for APC in the FCT and Abuja.

In the Electoral Act 2026, there’s no provision for a commander of field operations. Wike has announced how he won election for Governor Monday Opkebholo in Edo State. In that election of September 2024, the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Anugbum Onuoha, was declared by Godwin Obaseki, the governor at the time, to be Wike’s cousin. But INEC refused to redeploy Onuoha. That electoral process was glitched during collation and different figures surfaced.

Adeleke used the ticket of Accord Party (AP) to win the August 15, 2026, governorship in Osun. It was a major victory, well celebrated by the opposition. Adeleke narrowly escaped the well-laid plans to snatch the state for APC. The people of Osun refused to let Adeleke down. They voted and protected their votes.

Despite all that transpired, Adeleke is now leader of APC Presidential campaign in Osun. Some say it is politics without bitterness. But 30 human beings were killed on both sides before the elections were won and lost.

Soludo has surrendered the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) to APC for use in 2027. APGA will not contest the presidency with APC. Both the PDP and APGA are not lightweight parties, going by their founding histories and accomplishments. But they have been drained and captured by the APC. That’s not democracy. It is a transaction.

Tinubu cannot outsource his campaign
When he left for Europe, the reason they gave was that President Tinubu needed to rest well (30 days) before the campaigns. He came back and stated he was: “healthy, sound and ready to go.” Now, the story is, there’s too much work, no time to run around for campaigns. Mr President, you cannot outsource the social contract. Nigerians want to see you, hear you!