*Photo: Professor Kehinde Yusuf*
The Electoral Act 2026 is an unfinished matter. On this matter, the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC) is a major voice, and the body was acknowledged briefly towards the end of the article titled “Electoral Act 2026: Matters arising” in this column on 8 March, 2026. Today, IPAC is given the more robust attention it deserves.
On its website, IPAC self-identifies as “the umbrella body of all the registered Political Parties in Nigeria. A platform for the promotion and sustenance of a free, fair, credible, transparent, acceptable, inclusive and peaceful electoral environment in Nigeria. It promotes the conduct of political contests devoid of rancour and emphasizes the values of tolerance, sound conduct, a spirit of accommodation and teamwork in planning or organizing political competition with a view to strengthening and deepening the nation’s emerging democracy.”
IPAC therefore categorically lent its voice to the continuing debate on the Electoral Act 2026. Most notably, on 5 March, 2026, it issued a communique signed by the National Chair, Dr. Yusuf Dantalle of the Allied People’s Movement (APM), and the National Secretary, Barr. Maxwell Mgbudem of Accord Party (A), at the end of its General Assembly Meeting in Abuja. In the communique, IPAC expressed dissatisfaction with some of the provisions of the Electoral Act 2026 which it believed were “inconsistent with the spirit of multiparty democracy” and antithetical to “IPAC’s guiding principle of ‘Deepening Democracy in Nigeria.’” IPAC therefore threatened to boycott the 2027 general elections if the Electoral Act 2026 is not amended to address the issues.
Specifically, IPAC declared: “It is an established principle, affirmed by several judicial pronouncements, including those of the highest courts in Nigeria, that political parties possess certain fundamental rights in the administration of their internal affairs. However, the new Electoral Act 2026 has curtailed this right through Section 84(2), which excludes indirect primaries. IPAC believes that the exclusion of indirect primaries constitutes a violation of the constitutional right of political parties to regulate their internal affairs, including determining the method of nominating their candidates for elections. This provision, if left unamended, will significantly undermine political party development and weaken multiparty democracy in Nigeria.”
However, the rights of political parties to choose are not absolute, but are to be balanced with the rights of aspirants to be given a level playing field and the rights of other stakeholders in the election management process to carry out their duties without or with minimal distraction. In this regard, in an 8 November, 2022 issue of Premium Times, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, the Chair of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) at the time, noted with regard to the 2023 general elections that “cases arising from the conduct of primaries for the nomination of candidates by political parties is on the increase.” INEC was often joined as a defendant in these legal cases which cost the commission billions of naira.
Moreover, the current Chair of INEC, Professor Joash Amupitan, SAN, was reported in The Nation newspaper of 4 March, 2026, to have said as follows in his keynote address at a technical workshop on the review of INEC’s Regulations and Guidelines for Political Parties at Ikot Ekpene, Akwa Ibom State, on 3 March, 2026: “Political parties in Nigeria face the crisis of internal democracy. Of grave concern is the quality of Party Primaries. As we move towards the primary window of April 23 to May 30, 2026, we must enforce a level playing field.”
He was further reported to have noted: “The quality of internal party democracy has a direct bearing on the secondary election conducted by INEC. If unpopular candidates are forced upon the electorate through non-transparent processes, we face the twin monsters of voter apathy and an explosion of pre-election litigation.” Professor Amupitan was further reported to have remarked: “Each day spent defending these intra-party disputes is a day diverted from our primary mandate of election planning.”
Indirect primaries have the tendency to produce problematic candidates whose choice incites acrimony and litigation and induces electorate alienation and voter apathy. In the past, indirect primaries have made it attractive for public office holders (e.g., governors) to appoint an alarmingly large number of political aides with the ostensible aim of gaining undue advantage by the appointors, especially in the delegates system which is a key feature of the indirect mode of candidate selection.
Removing indirect primaries from the Electoral Act 2026 is therefore a commendable effort to balance the interests of diverse electoral stakeholders for promoting inclusion and equity for enhancing harmony. In other words, insisting that indirect primaries be restored contradicts IPAC’s declared mission of promoting a free, fair, transparent, inclusive and rancour-free electoral environment. In fact, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was reported by his Special Adviser, Bayo Onanuga, to have said, at an 11 March, 2026 interfaith breaking of fast with members of the National Working Committee of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and leaders of IPAC, that “direct primaries provide party members with better opportunities to participate and determine their representatives at various levels of governance.”
Another key area of objection by IPAC is Section 60(3) of the Electoral Act 2026 which provides that where the results of a polling unit cannot be transmitted electronically, the results recorded manually in Form EC8A should suffice. IPAC demanded in its communique for the “restoration of mandatory electronic transmission of results.” It is not clear what IPAC means by this demand. That notwithstanding, it is helpful to note that unguarded electronic transmission of results or one done without manual or hardcopy back-up can undermine the integrity of the electoral process.
This fear is validated by the fact that, on 11 January, 2026, Bolaji Abdullahi, the National Publicity Secretary of ADC (which is also a key member of IPAC) issued an official statement in which he alerted: “The African Democratic Congress (ADC) wishes to inform the general public, party members, and supporters that a series of fraudulent online links, websites and social media handles are currently being circulated, falsely claiming to be the official ADC registration platform. There is no official ADC registration link or website open at the moment. All links currently circulating should be completely disregarded.”
IPAC also demanded in its communique: “The requirement that members of political parties must possess and upload their National Identification Number (NIN) should be expunged. This provision will disenfranchise a significant number of Nigerians who do not have access to NIN and constitutes a violation of their rights under Article 13 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.” It is doubtful whether it is inconsistent with that charter to take measures to ascertain that party members meet the citizenship criterion. In fact, in the past, some sections of the opposition have alleged that the ruling party won because it brought foreigners into the country to vote for it. Besides, NIN registration, like party membership registration, is a continuous exercise, and the respective parties are supposed to take the facilitation of NIN registration as part of their membership mobilisation obligations.
Moreover, the government against which IPAC planned to act is controlled by one its members – APC, thereby creating the impression that IPAC is an essentially opposition platform. In fact, the Deputy National Chair of IPAC, Hajiya Zainab A. Ibrahim of APC, was reported in a 6 March, 2026 Arise News interview with the IPAC Chair, to have disagreed with the election boycott threat and to have left the IPAC meeting before the communique was read. In addition, as reported in the 8 March, 2026 issue of The Punch, parties on behalf of which IPAC was issuing the threat of election boycott (e.g., ADC, LP and APGA) have started expressing commitment and taking concrete steps to comply with requisite provisions of the Electoral Act 2026 as signed by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. These signal disharmony and internal misalignment which IPAC needs to address.
Furthermore, on the election boycott threat, it is to be noted that taking part in an election is not mandatory. It is discretionary. However, as lawyer and former National Commissioner of INEC, Festus Okoye, noted in a 2 September, 2025 article in ThisDay newspaper titled “Political parties, primaries, and the courts,” consideration needs to be given to the minimum threshold to remain registered as a political party. In other words, an election boycott by members of IPAC could increase their risk of deregistration if they fall short of the provisions of Section 225(a) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as amended, which require a party to win a specified minimum number of seats in order to validly continue as a political party. A boycott of the 2027 elections by members of IPAC could therefore amount to shooting themselves in the foot.
IPAC also needs to act with circumspection considering the fact that the council declared as follows in its communique: “The Council insists that the National Assembly must address the observations outlined … as irreducible minimum conditions necessary to guarantee that the 2027 General Elections are free, fair, credible, and inclusive. IPAC also reserves the right to approach the courts to challenge the legality of certain objectionable provisions of the Electoral Act 2026.” It is important to note here that, in passing the law, the National Assembly has acted in consonance with its constitutional duties.
Moreover, in a YouTube record of the interfaith fast-breaking, President Tinubu remarked: “The rule of law must prevail in any democracy. … Majority will have their say and their way, and minority will have their say and might not have their way. That is the essence of democracy.” He further said about the Electoral Act 2026 which he signed: “There’s an overwhelming majority in the National Assembly that passed the law. If I had [any] serious question or reservation about it, I would have raised it. But I had none. I submitted myself to the principle of rule of law, democracy. I signed. I signed. The rest is history. We’ll meet at the polls.”
The IPAC communique on the Electoral Act 2026 manifests the tendency for some members of the Nigerian elite to throw tantrums and threaten to seek indulgence in foreign nations or organisations with respect to issues that could be more productively addressed based on the opportunities provided at home. In this regard, on the body’s misgivings about the signed Act, the communique stated: “In the present circumstances, … IPAC has resolved to draw the attention of Nigerians and the international community, including the United Nations (UN), the European Union (EU), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the United States Embassy, the United Kingdom Embassy, and Nigerians in the diaspora to these concerns.” This could be perceived as an unpatriotic attempt by IPAC to denigrate Nigeria on the global scene.