Fresh legal challenges may hit some political parties and their candidates ahead of the 2027 general elections following the Supreme Court’s restoration of key provisions of the Electoral Act 2026.
As reported by PUNCH, the apex court, in a unanimous judgment delivered on Thursday, reinstated Sections 77(5), 77(6), 77(7) and 84(2) of the Act, which deal with party membership registers and the nomination of candidates. The provisions had earlier been declared unconstitutional by the Court of Appeal.
Although the judgment did not specifically nullify nominations already conducted, legal questions have emerged over how the restored provisions will apply to candidates whose membership, defections or primary processes could be challenged.
The affected provisions require political parties to submit their membership registers to the Independent National Electoral Commission within the prescribed period and use the registers during their primary elections. Section 84(2) also provides for direct primaries or consensus in the nomination of candidates.
The development has drawn attention to several politicians whose nomination processes could face legal scrutiny, including former Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, who emerged as the Social Democratic Party governorship candidate in Nasarawa State through a substitution process, and former House of Representatives Minority Leader, Kingsley Chinda, who emerged as the All Progressives Congress governorship candidate in Rivers State.
Also under scrutiny is Senator Saliu Mustapha, who moved from the APC to the Peoples Democratic Party before securing the PDP ticket for the Kwara Central senatorial district.
Former Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, is facing a separate legal development in Gombe State after the Federal High Court nullified the PDP governorship primary that produced him and ordered the party to conduct another exercise.
The PDP has consequently fixed September 29 for a fresh governorship primary in Gombe. The party has cleared Pantami, Khamisu Ahmed Mailantarki and Usman Aliyu Garry to participate in the rerun.
A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Salman Jawondo, however, said the Supreme Court judgment did not automatically invalidate nominations that had already been completed.
Jawondo argued that the judgment was a general interpretation of the law and could not, by itself, empower INEC to remove already nominated candidates without a specific legal challenge.
Another SAN, Bolaji Ayorinde, also maintained that the decision did not create a new basis for automatically disqualifying candidates, stressing that constitutional requirements remained central to eligibility for elective office.
But the Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association, Ikirun Branch, Osun State, Abdulkareem Azeez, said the implications of the judgment would depend on the circumstances surrounding individual candidates.
Azeez noted that the Supreme Court did not make specific findings on the membership-register status, conduct of individual primaries or timing of defections of the politicians whose candidacies could become subjects of litigation.
He said questions such as whether candidates were properly listed on their parties’ membership registers within the period prescribed by law and whether their primaries complied with the Electoral Act could still arise.
Meanwhile, the Independent National Electoral Commission has yet to publicly clarify how it intends to implement the Supreme Court judgment in relation to nominations already conducted.
Calls to the commission’s spokespersons for clarification were reportedly unsuccessful as of press time.
