Today, I took time to peruse through the Electoral Act, 2026. Shockingly, the deeper one digs into the Act, the more it becomes clear that the most consequential political engineering is happening very far away from the public debate.
Typically, Nigerians are loudly arguing about electronic transmission and BVAS, Section.60 (1-3). While that debate is valid, I have always wondered if that is where the real ambush is laid.
For me, I think the real restructuring of political power is buried in the sections governing party primaries. Sections 84 – 87 maybe the weapon fashioned against opposition parties.
These provisions look technical, even boring, but they quietly redraw the map of who can legally contest elections in 2027.
The new law has abolished indirect primaries entirely, retaining only direct and consensus primaries as valid methods for selecting candidates. This is explicitly stated in Section 84(1–2), which “recognises only direct and consensus primaries” .
At first glance, this seems like a democratic reform. But when paired with the new requirement that every political party must maintain and submit a verified digital membership register to INEC at least 21 days before primaries, the picture changes dramatically see Section 77 (1-7).
As The Punch rightly reported, digital party registers are now compulsory, and any party that fails to submit them on time “shall not be eligible to field a candidate” .
This is where the quiet ambush lies.
Many parties do not have functional, centralised membership databases. Some do not even have unified national structures. The law now demands not just a list, but a verified digital register that must be used exclusively for primaries.
The raw implications:
No parallel lists.
No emergency adjustments.
No improvisation.
For parties with factional crises, competing executives, or weak grassroots structures, this requirement is a ticking time bomb.
Direct primaries add another layer of difficulty.
They require nationwide mobilisation, transparent membership verification, and significant financial resources.
As rightly reported by The Daily Post, the Act mandates digital registers and direct primaries as part of a broader push for transparency and internal democracy . But transparency is expensive. Internal democracy is messy. And logistics are unforgiving. A single flawed primary can nullify an entire slate of candidates.
This is where the structural advantage of the APC becomes impossible to ignore. APC apparently aware of the law beforehand, already has a comfortable headstart. They already maintain a large, centralised membership database.
Added to it, APC has the financial muscle and nationwide presence to conduct direct primaries without collapsing under the weight of logistics.
Its internal culture makes consensus more achievable than in opposition parties where factions often cannot agree on ward executives, let alone gubernatorial or presidential candidates.
The brilliance of this legislative shift is its subtlety. Nothing in the law appears overtly partisan. Nothing sparks mass outrage. Yet the consequences are profound. By the time many parties realise the implications, the deadlines for digital registers will have passed, primaries will be invalidated, and the courts will be flooded with challenges.
The 2027 ballot may shrink dramatically because parties failed to meet administrative thresholds they never took seriously.
The most troubling gap in the new Electoral Act is the complete silence on Candidates Qualifications. No section talked explicitly the Candidate’s Qualifications criteria for the general election. Section 29 (5) is restricted to those who contested primaries that can challenge contents of candidate’s nomination form. This carefully protected those whose academic qualifications are either forged of non-existent. I stand to be corrected if I understand this wrongly.
Finally, as expected of anything APC touches, the public conversation is happening in one place, but the real political ambush is happening somewhere else entirely.
The Electoral Act 2026 doesn’t just change how Nigerians vote; it changes who gets to be on the ballot at all. The question now is not whether the opposition understands this shift, but whether they can reorganise fast enough to survive it.
Opposition parties must insist that the electoral Act be revisited or they boycott the election for APC.
Perhaps that’s what APC secretly desires.
