Supreme Court Judgement: Parties that violate membership register rule won’t field candidates – INEC

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said political parties that violated the statutory requirement on membership registers will not be allowed to field candidates in the 2027 general elections.

INEC National Commissioner for Information and Voter Education, Mohammed Haruna, disclosed this on Wednesday when he appeared on Trust TV’s Daily Politics programme.

Mr Haruna said the commission would not allow parties to substitute candidates affected by the Supreme Court’s recent judgment on the submission and use of party membership registers.

He said allowing such parties to substitute the affected candidates would amount to making them to benefit from their own violation of the law.

“It’s like you committed an offence and then, you come and benefit from it. You remember cases that we had of some in Zamfara, you remember Plateau? The same thing. The parties, because they did the wrong thing, they thought they could now steal through the candidates,” he said.

“And the law was very clear. Once you do that kind of thing, you cannot benefit from it. You are benefiting from it, if you are able to substitute a candidate.”

INEC’s position followed a recent Supreme Court ruling that affirmed the constitutionality of Sections 77(5), 77(6) and 77(7) of the Electoral Act 2026.

The court also upheld INEC’s revised timetable and schedule of activities for the 2027 general elections.

Under Section 77(5), only members whose names appear on a political party’s membership register submitted to INEC within the prescribed period can participate in the party’s primaries, congresses or conventions.

Section 77(6) requires parties to use the membership register submitted to INEC for their primaries, while Section 77(7) provides that a party that fails to submit its register within the stipulated period is not eligible to field candidates.

Since the Supreme Court’s judgement some candidates have been speculated in the media as having been affected. They include the APC governorship candidate in Rivers State, Kingsley Chinda and the NDC senatorial candidate for Delta Central, Ovie Omo-Agege, who is a former deputy senate president.

Decision to apply to all

Mr Haruna said the commission’s position would apply to candidates across all elective positions, including the state Houses of Assembly.

“All the candidates, all the way to the Houses of Assembly, we interviewed them. If their names are not on the party register, they were not members of the party at the time that they contested for those tickets,” he said.

He said some political parties could consequently be left without candidates for some positions, depending on the outcome of INEC’s review.

“Some parties may not be able to finish with even governorship candidates,” he said.

Background

The Supreme Court judgement followed a legal battle over provisions of the Electoral Act 2026 governing political party membership registers, party primaries and candidate nomination.

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The Zenith Labour Party (ZLP) had challenged the provisions of sections 77(5), (6) and (7).

A Federal High Court judgement and a Court of Appeal decision initially nullified Sections 77(5) to (7) and Section 84(2), as well as aspects of INEC’s revised timetable for the 2027 elections, creating uncertainty over the commission’s timetable and the legal consequences of parties’ failure to comply with the membership-register requirements.

However, INEC appealed the decision at the Supreme Court, which subsequently set aside the Court of Appeal judgement and upheld the relevant provisions of the Electoral Act.

PREMIUM TIMES reported that the Supreme Court delivered the judgment on 24 September after hearing the appeal filed by the electoral commission against the Court of Appeal decision.

INEC Chairman, Joash Amupitan, said the commission only obtained the Certified True Copy (CTC) of the Supreme Court judgement on Tuesday.