Primaries
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Jibrin Ibrahim
Jun 7, 2026, 5:23:14 PM (yesterday) Jun 7
to 'chidi opara reports' via USA Africa Dialogue Series
Party Primaries and the end of Democratic Politics
Jibrin Ibrahim, Deepening Democracy Column, Daily Trust, 5th June 2026
The lessons from the party primaries season is that democracy and
ethical political behavior have been deleted from the Nigerian
political system. INEC had imposed a narrow timeline insisting all
primaries be concluded by 30th May. This was challenged and a court
judgement from the Federal High Court of Justice Mohammad G. Umar,
sitting in Abuja, nullified INEC’s deadline. Given the fear of
possible judicial consequences, the major parties felt it was safer to
comply with the INEC deadline because they appealed and Nigerians know
the courts. Following the provisions in the new Electoral Act,
primaries were conducted either through consensus or direct elections.
Consensus in Nigerian political language means imposition. The boss
decides who the consensus is. Direct primaries in law means all party
members have the right to vote for the candidate. The reality is that
no political party in the country has the capacity to organise these
elections in all the 8,809 wards in the country. Direct voting in
primaries therefore mean that party leaders simply write numbers for
candidates as they please. In Nigeria, this process is called results
by declaration. It is efficient as no one has the possibility of
actually voting to mess up Oga’s decision. The process becomes one of
make belief.
There was no surprise when the APC Presidential primaries took place
in 8,809 wards across 36 states and the FCT and President Tinubu won
with 10, 999,967 votes as announced by Senator Pius Anyim Anyim at the
Tinubu International Conference Centre in Abuja on Sunday, May 23.
They didn’t choose the Eagle Square. The announcement had to be in a
building named after Tinubu himself! The only issue was that no one
saw anyone voting. To lend the entire process a veneer of legitimacy,
competition and credibility, Tinubu was challenged by an unknown
person called Stanley Osifo from Edo State. People have now seen his
name for the first time as he was allocated 16,504 votes and according
to rumours that circulated, he was handsomely rewarded for his role in
play acting. It was good drama.
The main outcome of the APC primaries was that only those approved by
the President were allocated winning votes or consensus declarations.
There was no possibility of surprise victories. Hordes of prospective
candidates had been persuaded to abandon their parties and join the
APC with promises that they will be given tickets. Most of them were
shocked when they discovered they had been deceived and were used and
dumped. It is only after that that they realised all doors had been
closed as the Electoral Act has now closed the possibility of their
running to another party to get nominations as many had done in the
past. Joining the ruling party is no longer a winning strategy.
Many of the APC members in the National Assembly received a political
death blow. The APC had 242 members in the House of Representatives,
and 88 Senators. Many of them did not get their return tickets. They
were either screened out, outsmarted or defeated through the
declaration process. Dr. Ajibola Bashiru, Secretary General of the APC
had said all results would be declared centrally from the party
secretariat. Nobody listened to him. The results were collated and
announced on site under the direction of State Governors. Governors as
is well known like removing powerful legislators that are gaining
political weight and replacing them with their boys who show more
loyalty. Many of the losers are appealing the outcomes butt they find
themselves caught in a quagmire where the judiciary is largely in the
hands of the powers that be. An interesting case study was in Rivers
State where the governor had a different reality from the others. Gov.
Simi Fubara was screened out of the nomination process because he fell
out of favour with a Godfather who is not even a member of the APC,
but a friend of the APC President. He could not get a single
nomination for his boys in the National and State Assemblies.
It was not just the APC that is guilty as charged. In the African
Democratic Congress (ADC), there have been two congresses. Dumebi
Kachikwu has been declared the Presidential candidate of one faction.
In the David Mark-faction, the contest was from a list of three: Atiku
Abubakar, Rotimi Amaechi and Mohammed Hayatudeen. Atiku won with a
massive lead. Both Amaechi and Hayatudeen said the numbers were
fabricated in a naked process of electoral fraud. Former Secretary of
the Federal Government, Babachir Lawal, a party baron, declared that
the level of rigging in the ADC was so high that he is jumping ship
and will henceforth support his former political enemy Bola Tinubu.
The political party primaries are enough reasons for concern and
anxiety about the forthcoming elections. The political parties showed
absolute disregard to party members. Only the President, state
governors and party godfathers mattered. A significant part of the
political class has been played out and they feel cheated, bitter and
betrayed. The process has established the principle that recruitment
into the political is not based on the popularity of candidates
because voting is no longer part of the selection process. We now have
a mafia style recruitment process in which the boss, the capo, chooses
and the entire organisation must obey or be eliminated. It is above
all a symbolic process in which Nigerians are being told you have no
role to play in the process. When we are told that President Tinubu
got 11 million votes in the APC primaries, far more than his total
votes in the 2023 Presidential election of 8,805, 475, the suggestion
is that he would get more votes in the general election in 2027
because that is the way the system is now configured.
Over 120 members of the National Assembly, comprising both the Senate
and the House of Representatives, defected from the political parties
that brought them into the Chambers. Most of these defectors sought
the party’s tickets to run for re-election in various contests, but to
no avail, sparking outrage. Senator Ned Nwoko (Delta North) accused
the APC leadership of deception, alleging that he was promised an
automatic return ticket to the Senate before defecting from PDP to the
ruling party.
The message of those in power is that the rule of law no longer
operates in the process. Section 87 of the Electoral Act prescribes
that: “(1) A political party that adopts a consensus candidate shall
secure the written consent of all cleared aspirants for the position,
indicating their voluntary withdrawal from the race and their
endorsement of the consensus candidate.
(2) Where a political party is unable to secure the written consent of
all cleared aspirants for a consensus candidate, it shall revert to
the choice of direct primaries for the nomination of candidates for
elective positions. These provisions were simply disregarded and even
former ministers are now complaining that they rejected the consensus
method but their protests were disregarded. Now we all know, only
anointing by the godfather is a legitimate door of entry into power.
Who can now continue to claim we live in a democracy.
Professor Jibrin Ibrahim
Senior Fellow
Centre for Democracy and Development, Abuja
Follow me on twitter @jibrinibrahim17
Jibrin Ibrahim, Deepening Democracy Column, Daily Trust, 5th June 2026
The lessons from the party primaries season is that democracy and
ethical political behavior have been deleted from the Nigerian
political system. INEC had imposed a narrow timeline insisting all
primaries be concluded by 30th May. This was challenged and a court
judgement from the Federal High Court of Justice Mohammad G. Umar,
sitting in Abuja, nullified INEC’s deadline. Given the fear of
possible judicial consequences, the major parties felt it was safer to
comply with the INEC deadline because they appealed and Nigerians know
the courts. Following the provisions in the new Electoral Act,
primaries were conducted either through consensus or direct elections.
Consensus in Nigerian political language means imposition. The boss
decides who the consensus is. Direct primaries in law means all party
members have the right to vote for the candidate. The reality is that
no political party in the country has the capacity to organise these
elections in all the 8,809 wards in the country. Direct voting in
primaries therefore mean that party leaders simply write numbers for
candidates as they please. In Nigeria, this process is called results
by declaration. It is efficient as no one has the possibility of
actually voting to mess up Oga’s decision. The process becomes one of
make belief.
There was no surprise when the APC Presidential primaries took place
in 8,809 wards across 36 states and the FCT and President Tinubu won
with 10, 999,967 votes as announced by Senator Pius Anyim Anyim at the
Tinubu International Conference Centre in Abuja on Sunday, May 23.
They didn’t choose the Eagle Square. The announcement had to be in a
building named after Tinubu himself! The only issue was that no one
saw anyone voting. To lend the entire process a veneer of legitimacy,
competition and credibility, Tinubu was challenged by an unknown
person called Stanley Osifo from Edo State. People have now seen his
name for the first time as he was allocated 16,504 votes and according
to rumours that circulated, he was handsomely rewarded for his role in
play acting. It was good drama.
The main outcome of the APC primaries was that only those approved by
the President were allocated winning votes or consensus declarations.
There was no possibility of surprise victories. Hordes of prospective
candidates had been persuaded to abandon their parties and join the
APC with promises that they will be given tickets. Most of them were
shocked when they discovered they had been deceived and were used and
dumped. It is only after that that they realised all doors had been
closed as the Electoral Act has now closed the possibility of their
running to another party to get nominations as many had done in the
past. Joining the ruling party is no longer a winning strategy.
Many of the APC members in the National Assembly received a political
death blow. The APC had 242 members in the House of Representatives,
and 88 Senators. Many of them did not get their return tickets. They
were either screened out, outsmarted or defeated through the
declaration process. Dr. Ajibola Bashiru, Secretary General of the APC
had said all results would be declared centrally from the party
secretariat. Nobody listened to him. The results were collated and
announced on site under the direction of State Governors. Governors as
is well known like removing powerful legislators that are gaining
political weight and replacing them with their boys who show more
loyalty. Many of the losers are appealing the outcomes butt they find
themselves caught in a quagmire where the judiciary is largely in the
hands of the powers that be. An interesting case study was in Rivers
State where the governor had a different reality from the others. Gov.
Simi Fubara was screened out of the nomination process because he fell
out of favour with a Godfather who is not even a member of the APC,
but a friend of the APC President. He could not get a single
nomination for his boys in the National and State Assemblies.
It was not just the APC that is guilty as charged. In the African
Democratic Congress (ADC), there have been two congresses. Dumebi
Kachikwu has been declared the Presidential candidate of one faction.
In the David Mark-faction, the contest was from a list of three: Atiku
Abubakar, Rotimi Amaechi and Mohammed Hayatudeen. Atiku won with a
massive lead. Both Amaechi and Hayatudeen said the numbers were
fabricated in a naked process of electoral fraud. Former Secretary of
the Federal Government, Babachir Lawal, a party baron, declared that
the level of rigging in the ADC was so high that he is jumping ship
and will henceforth support his former political enemy Bola Tinubu.
The political party primaries are enough reasons for concern and
anxiety about the forthcoming elections. The political parties showed
absolute disregard to party members. Only the President, state
governors and party godfathers mattered. A significant part of the
political class has been played out and they feel cheated, bitter and
betrayed. The process has established the principle that recruitment
into the political is not based on the popularity of candidates
because voting is no longer part of the selection process. We now have
a mafia style recruitment process in which the boss, the capo, chooses
and the entire organisation must obey or be eliminated. It is above
all a symbolic process in which Nigerians are being told you have no
role to play in the process. When we are told that President Tinubu
got 11 million votes in the APC primaries, far more than his total
votes in the 2023 Presidential election of 8,805, 475, the suggestion
is that he would get more votes in the general election in 2027
because that is the way the system is now configured.
Over 120 members of the National Assembly, comprising both the Senate
and the House of Representatives, defected from the political parties
that brought them into the Chambers. Most of these defectors sought
the party’s tickets to run for re-election in various contests, but to
no avail, sparking outrage. Senator Ned Nwoko (Delta North) accused
the APC leadership of deception, alleging that he was promised an
automatic return ticket to the Senate before defecting from PDP to the
ruling party.
The message of those in power is that the rule of law no longer
operates in the process. Section 87 of the Electoral Act prescribes
that: “(1) A political party that adopts a consensus candidate shall
secure the written consent of all cleared aspirants for the position,
indicating their voluntary withdrawal from the race and their
endorsement of the consensus candidate.
(2) Where a political party is unable to secure the written consent of
all cleared aspirants for a consensus candidate, it shall revert to
the choice of direct primaries for the nomination of candidates for
elective positions. These provisions were simply disregarded and even
former ministers are now complaining that they rejected the consensus
method but their protests were disregarded. Now we all know, only
anointing by the godfather is a legitimate door of entry into power.
Who can now continue to claim we live in a democracy.
Professor Jibrin Ibrahim
Senior Fellow
Centre for Democracy and Development, Abuja
Follow me on twitter @jibrinibrahim17
Ibrahim Abdullah
Jun 7, 2026, 8:21:05 PM (23 hours ago) Jun 7
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This is wild--back to the 60s.
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mr smith martin
8:34 AM (11 hours ago) 8:34 AM
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Victor Okafor
12:35 PM (7 hours ago) 12:35 PM
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Quite worrisome! Dear Prof, since "no one saw anyone voting," as you have written, how then did the APC party leaders come up with the figure of 10, 999,967 by which Tinubu was said to have clinched the APC nomination for next year's presidential election? This member was simply conjured up by the leader of the party? Would that not be a crime? Are you saying that you know for sure, and have evidence to demonstrate that in this and other instances you cited, there was no form of digital voting by party members during the nomination process? Take note that I am not a member of any political party. I belong to a group commonly referred to as "Independents."
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAFV228BoaD8FnYcHeuWf6u-xikBeZ%3DGFzejxKxez_e3QFwSvyQ%40mail.gmail.com.
Sincerely,
Victor O. Okafor, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Africology and African American Studies (DAAAS)
Eastern Michigan University
Email: vok...@emich.edu
Office Telephone: 734.487.3463
Cell Phone: 734.846.6825
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