The Pacesetter Frontier Magazine

Tag: political parties

  • 2027: INEC Publishes Final List of 4,408 National Assembly Candidates

    2027: INEC Publishes Final List of 4,408 National Assembly Candidates

    Precious Nwonu, Enugu

    The Independent National Electoral Commission has released the final list of candidates contesting the 2027 National Assembly elections, with 4,408 candidates cleared to vie for seats in the Senate and House of Representatives.

    An analysis of the candidate documents published by the electoral body showed that 1,195 candidates are contesting Senate seats, while 3,213 are seeking election into the House of Representatives.

    The publication comes as political parties step up preparations for the 2027 general elections, with the presidential and National Assembly elections scheduled for January 16, 2027.

    INEC’s timetable also fixed February 6, 2027, for the governorship and State House of Assembly elections.

    The figures released by the commission show a significant gender gap among the candidates, with 3,965 men and 443 women contesting the National Assembly seats.

    For the Senate, 1,080 candidates are male, while 115 are female.

    The House of Representatives list comprises 2,885 male candidates and 328 female candidates.

    The Allied Peoples Movement recorded the highest number of female candidates across the two chambers, with 11 women contesting Senate seats and 42 seeking election into the House of Representatives.

    Meanwhile, INEC has also published the final list of presidential and vice-presidential candidates for the 2027 general elections.

    The list, signed by the Secretary to the Commission, Rose Oriaran-Anthony, contains 18 presidential candidates and their running mates across various political parties.

    Among the presidential candidates are President Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of the African Democratic Congress, former Anambra State Governor Peter Obi of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, Oyo State Governor Oluseyi Makinde of the Allied Peoples Movement, Sandy Ojang Onor of the Peoples Democratic Party and former Cross River State Governor Donald Duke of the Peoples Redemption Party.

    Other candidates include Rufai Adekunle Omo-Aje of the Action Alliance, Abbas-Bin Aliyu of the Action Democratic Party, Yusuf Kabiru of the Action Peoples Party, Omoyele Sowore of the African Action Congress, Sunday Adenuga of the Boot Party, Adebisi Olusoji of the Democratic Labour Alliance, Sunday Okereke of the Labour Party, Adewole Adebayo of the Social Democratic Party, Peter Agada of the Young Progressive Party and Nwanyanwu Daberechukwu of the Zenith Labour Party.

    Ada Elizabeth Frederick Okwori of the National Democratic Party and Nkem Esther Okereke of the National Rescue Movement are the two female presidential candidates listed by the commission.

    The release of the various candidate lists marks another stage in INEC’s preparations for the 2027 general elections.

  • INEC: concern over political parties lack of internal democracy

     

     

    The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has expressed serious concerns over lack of internal democracy in the political parties, describing it as the biggest challenge confronting Nigeria parties.

    INEC’s Director of Election and Party Monitoring, Aminu Idris, made the disclosure on the sideline at a workshop organised by West Minster Foundation for Democracy in collaboration with the Commission in Abuja on Wednesday.

    The Director, however admitted that there has been progress in the development of political parties since 1999 till today, equipping that the dominance of one godfather is now a thing of the past.

    Commenting on the trust of the workshop and the challenge of monitoring political parties, the INEC Director said: “The Commission in collaboration with West Minster Foundation for Democracy had commissioned Professor Jibrin to develop indices that can be used to monitor the political parties and which they can use to assess themselves.

    “The assessment is to ensure that the political parties are playing the roles they are supposed to play like enhancing democracy and making it sustainable and buy in a social medium for governance.

    “The biggest challenge facing INEC monitoring political party is lack of internal democracy whereby parties don’t allow members to fully participate in the activities of political parties in the policy and election of the candidates of the party.

    “They have no input as to how the party is run. Lack of internal democracy is really one the biggest challenge facing INEC monitoring the political parties.

    “In terms of sanctioning the parties, our role is to ensure that the parties are in compliance with their own constitution. We monitor their activities and ensure that such activities are in compliance with the provision of the party constitution and when we find fault, we often write letters, requesting that they comply. “Sometimes their members equally petition the Commission and we will look at the illegal implications and write them letters. I also have to say that there is progress in our party development since 1999 till today. The dominance of one godfather is now a thing of the past, ” he said.

    Equally speaking on the sideline of the workshop, the National Chairman Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC), Leonard Nzenwa, said that what will be the biggest takeaway would be to strategise and ensure that no political party chairman emerge as presidential candidate of its party.

    “I think the political parties need to do a lot to broaden the scope and capacity of their functionaries to discharge their duties. For now, what we are trying to do is to elevate the status of IPAC as a body. The elevation is to ensure that every functionary of a political party has some level of capacity internally and externally to see how we can get membership.

    “There is different between the structure and membership of a political party. The political parties are not well to do, and it is only when we have strong and healthy parties that we talk about a very strong democracy.

    “The parties must ensure that the membership is broad by opening the space for all kinds of membership. The party should not by owned by an individual or hijacked by a cabal or particular group. Political parties should be regarded as a civic entity where anybody can come in and go out,” he noted.

    Enumerating the hurdles facing political parties, he said: “Some of the challenges we have in the past is that people see political parties as their property, their business and that has led to a situation where somebody who claims to be party chairman is holding the party’s ticket as presidential candidate.

    “Such is completely abhorrent and should not be encouraged. We are going to ensure that no political party in this country will field the chairman as presidential candidate.

    “One of the greatest challenge is to find a way to raise resources to undertake the enormous responsibility and that is why we  are,” he said.

     

     

     

    Source: www.sunnewsonline.com