Fresh details have emerged over the submission of candidates for the 2027 general election, with claims that all major political parties, including the All Progressives Congress (APC), the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the African Democratic Congress (ADC), failed to meet the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)’s original July 11 deadline for uploading the names of their presidential and National Assembly candidates.
The latest development follows earlier announcements by some political parties, particularly the APC, that they had fully complied with INEC’s deadline.
The ruling party had announced on July 12 that it successfully uploaded details of 471 candidates, including President Bola Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima as its presidential ticket, along with its Senate and House of Representatives candidates.
APC National Chairman, Prof. Nentawe Yilwatda, had declared, “I congratulate our candidates, leaders, and members of APC on the successful 100% upload of our Presidential, Vice Presidential, Senate, and House of Representatives candidates on the INEC Candidate Nomination Portal (ICNP).”
He added, “With this milestone achieved, our focus now shifts to mobilisation and preparations for a successful campaign and decisive victory at the polls.”
However, multiple sources within INEC have now reportedly disclosed that no political party met the commission’s initial July 11 deadline before it was extended to July 14. According to one of the sources, even the APC had not completed the process by the original deadline.
“As of July 11 deadline, before the extension to July 14, over 70 per cent of candidates in the APC had not been uploaded by the party. No party met that deadline. The commission had to bend backwards to accommodate them. In fact, the commission opened its back-end to be able to do that,” the source said.
The disclosure contradicts the APC’s earlier position that it had completed the exercise before the deadline and that the extension granted by INEC was mainly to help opposition parties that were unable to conclude their submissions.
In its earlier reaction, APC spokesman Felix Morka argued that the extension became necessary because opposition parties failed to properly manage their internal nomination processes despite having fewer candidates to handle than the ruling party.
“This development provides yet another clear indication of the opposition’s chronic inherent weakness and raises legitimate questions about their operational capacity. Political parties that cannot efficiently conclude their own internal nomination processes cannot possibly be trusted by Nigerians to possess the competence, discipline, or readiness to govern our great nation or its subnational governments,” Morka said.
The APC also accused opposition parties of hypocrisy for seeking additional time from the electoral commission after previously alleging that the ruling party controlled INEC.
“It is starkly ironical that the same opposition parties have repeatedly peddled false, malicious and unfounded tales that the APC controls and dictates INEC’s decisions. Yet, as they failed to meet the submission deadline, they shamelessly turned to the same INEC for respite, and were granted an extension,” the party stated.
But the fresh account from the electoral commission’s insider paints a different picture, insisting that the extension was not granted because of the opposition alone but because all registered political parties, including the APC, had fallen short of completing the upload process before the original deadline.
INEC had earlier confirmed that it extended the deadline after receiving an appeal from the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC), which said several political parties were unable to upload the names and personal particulars of their candidates within the stipulated period.
The commission, through its National Commissioner and Chairman of the Information and Voter Education Committee, Mohammed Kudu Haruna, said the extension was granted in line with its statutory powers and administrative discretion.
