Opposition Parties Pounce on APC’s Internal Turmoil
The All Progressives Congress is grappling with a fast-spreading internal storm after quietly rewriting its list of National Assembly candidates, a move that has drawn sharp condemnation from opposition parties and reignited long-standing questions about the credibility of the ruling party’s primary elections ahead of the 2027 general elections.
At the centre of the controversy is a decision by the APC’s National Working Committee to overturn the outcomes of senatorial primaries held in nine states, Kogi, Abia, Benue, Taraba, Ondo, Niger, Kwara, Kaduna and Ebonyi. The reversals, carried out on the recommendation of the party’s May Primary Election Appeal Committee, have restored six sitting senators to the ballot and displaced candidates who had previously been declared primary winners.
The revised list restores the tickets of Sunday Karimi (Kogi West), Emmanuel Udende (Benue North-East), Titus Zam (Benue North-West), Shuaibu Isa Lau (Taraba North), Adeniyi Adegbonmire (Ondo Central), and Olajide Ipinsagba (Ondo North). In Abia South, Prince Paul Ikonne — a former Chief Executive Officer of the National Agricultural Land Development Authority, has replaced Edinburgh Erondu.
Perhaps the most notable casualty of the shake-up is former Benue State governor Gabriel Suswam, whose earlier primary victory in Benue North-East has been nullified in favour of incumbent senator Emmanuel Udende. The reversal has triggered fresh legal anxieties and internal disagreements in the affected states, even as the party insists the changes were procedurally sound.
The timeline of events shows that the APC last week directed its state chapters to release finalised candidate lists for the 2027 polls while simultaneously issuing Independent National Electoral Commission nomination forms for completion. That directive was met with immediate pushback from aspirants who said they had been unfairly substituted despite having already been declared winners of their primaries.
Adding a further layer of tension to the unfolding drama is INEC’s own warning that it will reject the names of any candidates who did not emerge from primaries directly monitored by the commission, a caveat that now hangs over the ruling party’s revised submissions and could complicate its candidate list ahead of the polls.
Opposition Parties Pounce on APC’s Internal Turmoil
The Peoples Democratic Party wasted no time capitalising on the controversy, framing it as proof of deepening dysfunction within the ruling party. PDP National Publicity Secretary, Jungudo Mohammed, told Sunday PUNCH that his party intended to exploit the confusion to its political advantage.
“With the change of the candidate list, there is confusion in the APC. Let them continue to remain in confusion. It is our joy to see that they remain in confusion so that we can take advantage of that and take over power. It is not for us to advise them on how to put their house in order,” Mohammed said.
He added that the PDP’s own primaries had been comparatively free of rancour and reaffirmed the party’s readiness to receive aggrieved politicians from other camps. “The fact that we have our own strategies, which enabled us to conduct relatively rancour-free primaries, and that we are ensuring the names of successful candidates are forwarded to INEC, means it is not our responsibility to advise the APC on what to do. Instead, we will tell them to continue substituting names at will,” he said, citing the recent defections of Prof Iyabo Obasanjo and Prof Isa Pantami as evidence of the PDP’s growing appeal.
The Labour Party was equally unsparing in its criticism. National Publicity Secretary Ken Asogwa described the substitution of duly nominated candidates as a direct affront to the Electoral Act. “For us in the Labour Party, we did not supplant people who won with people who did not win. We did not, at any time, remove the names of people who won our primaries and replace them with those who did not win,” he said, adding that such conduct “makes a mockery of what the Electoral Act says.”
Asogwa drew a parallel to controversies that preceded the 2023 general elections, when candidates who had not participated in party primaries went on to secure powerful legislative positions without consequence. “Because there were no repercussions for the people who did this, they got away with it… When certain people commit such infractions and get away with it, other persons are emboldened to do the same thing,” he said, adding that stronger judicial intervention at the time might have prevented the present controversy.
ADC and SDP Condemn APC’s Candidate Substitution as Undemocratic
The African Democratic Congress warned that the fallout from the APC’s decision could cost the ruling party dearly in 2027. ADC National Publicity Secretary Bolaji Abdullahi said the party’s handling of its list had created needless resentment among its own members. “The crisis and confusion in the APC now are going to be their undoing in the next election. They have left many of their members bitter and aggrieved, but that is their problem,” he said.
Abdullahi contrasted his party’s approach with the APC’s, insisting the ADC would never replace a duly elected candidate except in the case of voluntary withdrawal. “ADC will not replace candidates who were duly elected during the primaries unless they voluntarily withdraw. The difference between the ADC and other parties is that we conducted direct, competitive primaries, while others merely handpicked favoured candidates in the name of consensus,” he said.
The Social Democratic Party took a more measured but no less critical position, describing the development as an internal APC affair while still branding it undemocratic. SDP National Publicity Secretary Rufus Aiyenigba said, “That is the APC’s problem and the dysfunctionality of its system. The SDP will not elevate or dignify the APC’s recklessness and anti-democratic tendencies… The SDP is focused. We have more important things to do. We are focused on 2027 and on providing alternative solutions to Nigeria’s problems.”
Obidient Movement and NDC Defend APC’s Right to Reconsider Candidates
Not every voice in the political space condemned the APC’s actions. Dr Yunusa Tanko, National Coordinator of the Obidient Movement Worldwide, argued that political parties retain a constitutional right to determine their own candidates through internal mechanisms, citing a Supreme Court position affirming that parties, not courts, hold that authority.
“The contradiction here is that there is a position by the Supreme Court that says the party is the one to nominate and decide. So, don’t be surprised. There is a mechanism set up by the party to look into grievances,” Tanko said, pointing to a similar appeal process undertaken by the NDC. He added that “all aggrieved persons must be carried along in line with the party’s constitution,” while acknowledging that “where there are wrongdoings, they should be addressed.”
The Nigeria Democratic Congress echoed this reasoning. NDC National Publicity Secretary Osa Director argued that Section 84 of the Electoral Act permits parties to shift from direct primaries to consensus-based candidate selection if irregularities are found. “If a party has conducted direct primaries, discovered possible irregularities, and decided, in its wisdom, to apply the mechanism of consensus building, I think it is the party’s prerogative to do so,” he said, while denying that his own party had imposed candidates on aggrieved members.
APC Defends Revised Candidate List as Fair and Lawful
Responding to the wave of criticism, APC Director of Publicity Bala Ibrahim insisted that every change made to the candidate list followed due process through the party’s internal appeal mechanism and reflected the party’s commitment to fairness and the wishes of its members.
Ibrahim turned his fire on the opposition, dismissing their criticism as a distraction from their own internal troubles. “Let them (the opposition) concentrate on solving the problems that have bedevilled them. The PDP is so factionalised that you don’t know whether it is a political party or an NGO now,” he said, adding that the APC remained focused on “how to deliver more dividends to Nigerians.”
On the substance of the revised list, Ibrahim maintained that the appeal process had worked exactly as intended. “It shows fairness and justice. It shows the willingness of our party to go by the wishes of the people. If, at any point in time, people are aggrieved and they protest, they can appeal, and there is an appeal committee that looks into the situation and sees that, yes, there are grounds for such an appeal. The right thing will be done, and the right thing has been done,” he said.
He further expressed confidence that party members would remain loyal despite the controversy, describing the APC as a party built on democratic principles and internal fairness. “Ours is a party of people who believe in the sanctity of democracy… We are made up of people who are good sportsmen, not losers like the PDP. When they lose, they become disenfranchised,” Ibrahim said.
What the Candidate List Overhaul Means for the Road to 2027
As it stands, the APC’s revised list leaves the ruling party navigating a delicate balancing act: satisfying internal factions that felt short-changed by the original primary results, while avoiding a direct collision with INEC’s insistence that only candidates from commission-monitored primaries will be recognised. With opposition parties already sharpening their messaging around the episode, the coming weeks are likely to determine whether the controversy fades into routine political noise or hardens into a lasting liability for the APC as the 2027 general elections draw closer.
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