Dr. Umar Ardo
Something dangerous is happening across Nigeria; something that is an existential threat to the very soul of our republic. In state after state, party after party, the process by which we choose who will contest for the highest offices in the land has been reduced to a criminal enterprise masquerading as politics. The 2027 primary elections, across the APC, PDP, Labour Party, SDP, ADC, NDC and all other parties, have not been elections at all. They have been coronations by cabal, selections by subterfuge and daylight robberies conducted with the shameless confidence of those who believe they will never be held accountable.
2. Consider the mathematics of this madness. In open counting processes, Nigerians have witnessed counts that defy logic and insult intelligence: “1, 2, 3, 9, 10, 30, 31, 32, 40, 41, 48, 50, 56, 85, 100, 150, 1000….” Numbers leapfrogging like kangaroos, skipping the arithmetic of accountability, landing wherever the puppet masters decree. Electors who stood in the sun for hours watched with amusement as results were hushed up, changed overnight or simply invented. Candidates who never contested woke up to find themselves “winners.” Those who spent months campaigning, mobilizing and connecting with the people discovered that their efforts meant nothing against the arithmetic of anointing. This is not politics. This is not democracy. This is a travesty; a word too gentle for the abomination we have witnessed.
3. Where was INEC in all these? This is the question that should haunt every patriotic Nigerian, that should be screamed from the rooftops of Abuja to the streets of Lagos, from the hills of Enugu to the savannahs of Kano. From the man in Ogoja to the woman in Kojoli. Where was INEC? The Independent National Electoral Commission is not a passive observer in our democratic process. It is not a ceremonial body that wakes up only when general elections approach. By the clear provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Electoral Act, INEC has a mandatory duty to monitor the primaries and congresses of all political parties. To monitor and not to observe! To monitor is to enforce. To monitor is not discretionary. It is not optional. It is a constitutional obligation rooted in the compulsion that the integrity of our general elections depends entirely on the integrity of the processes that produce the candidates.
4. Section 82 of the Electoral Act is unambiguous: political parties must give INEC at least 21 days’ notice of their primaries. Section 84 mandates that the commission monitor such primaries. The constitution itself, in Section 228, empowers the National Assembly to make laws ensuring that political parties observe democratic practices in their operations. The entire legal architecture presumes that INEC is the sentinel at the gate, the watchdog that ensures parties do not become private fiefdoms where a few godfathers play dice with the destiny of 220 million Nigerians.
5. So we must ask, with the full weight of citizenship behind our voices: Did INEC monitor these primaries? If INEC officials were present, what did they see? Did they see the party registers? Did they witness the non-accreditation of queuing members, the manipulated counts, the candidates who never contested being declared winners? Did they observe the “kangaroo arithmetic” of 1, 2, 3, 9, 10, 30, 100? Did they record the 99% voter turnouts? And if they saw these things, what did they do? Did they walk away in silence? Did they file reports that gathered dust? Did they raise alarms that were ignored or worse, did they simply not bother to look?
6. And if INEC was not present – if the commission failed to deploy monitors to these primaries or if parties held their sham exercises without INEC oversight – then we are confronted with an even more chilling reality: that the body charged with safeguarding our democracy has abandoned its post, leaving the field open for brigands to pillage the democratic process with impunity.
7. As of this writing, INEC’s response to this national scandal has been characterized by a deafening silence. The commission has not issued a comprehensive statement addressing the widespread irregularities. It has not named the parties that conducted proper primaries versus those that staged theatrical frauds. It has not explained why voters were manufactured or disenfranchised, why counts were manipulated and why democratic choice was subverted in broad daylight. This silence is not neutrality. In the face of such brazen criminality, INEC’s silence is complicity. When an electoral body watches, or fails to watch, while democracy is being butchered, and then says nothing, it becomes an accessory to the crime. It sends a signal to the political class that anything goes, that the rules are mere suggestions, that the constitution is a piece of paper to be ignored at will.
8. We demand answers. Nigerians deserve answers. Not press releases filled with bureaucratic platitudes, but concrete, specific, honest answers. Which primaries did INEC monitor, and which did it fail to monitor? What reports were filed by INEC monitors who witnessed these events? What is INEC’s official position on primaries where candidates who did not contest were declared winners? Will INEC accept the results of these sham exercises as valid for the purposes of the 2027 general elections? What sanctions, if any, will be imposed on parties that violated the Electoral Act? These are not rhetorical questions. They are the difference between a democracy and a dictatorship wearing democratic clothing.
9. Let us be brutally clear about what is at stake. If INEC accepts the results of these fraudulent primaries, if it prints the names of candidates selected through “kangaroo counting” and backroom deals on the ballot papers for 2027, then INEC will have participated in the destruction of Nigerian democracy. It will have legitimized fraud. It will have told every Nigerian that their vote does not matter. It will have confirmed to every aspiring politician that the path to power runs not through the people, but through the pocket of a godfather.
10. The consequences would be catastrophic. A general election built on fraudulent primaries is not an election at all; it is a selection by the powerful, rubber-stamped by the institutions that were created to prevent exactly that! It would mean that the presidency, the governorships, the National Assembly and the state houses of assembly are not expressions of the people’s will, but the spoils of war distributed among competing factions of the political elite. If this happens, we will not have a democracy. We will have an oligarchy dressed in the robes of democratic ritual, a system where the people are invited to vote only to validate choices that have already been made for them. And the tragedy is that many Nigerians, weary and cynical, will play along, not because they believe in the system, but because they have lost hope that it can ever be different. That is the death of democracy. Not with a bang, but with a fraudulent count: 1, 2, 3, 9, 10, 30, 1000….
11. But we must not allow this to happen. Nigeria is too precious, too full of promise, too deserving of genuine self-rule, to be surrendered to the arithmetic of anointing. We are a nation of 220 million souls, the largest Black nation on earth with brilliant minds, of resilient spirits, of people who have endured much and still believe in the possibility of a better tomorrow. We cannot let a handful of venal political thieves steal our future. This is a call to action. Not to violence – never to violence – but to vigilance, to voice and to voter sovereignty. To INEC, we say: Do your job. Publish your findings. Reject fraudulent candidates. Enforce the Electoral Act without fear or favour. The law is on your side. The constitution is your shield. The people are your backing. Do not be intimidated by political godfathers who have grown accustomed to treating public office as private property. History will judge you by what you do in this moment.
12. To the judiciary, we say: Be the last line of defense. When aggrieved candidates and citizens approach the courts with evidence of primary fraud, do not hide behind technicalities. The substance of democracy is more important than the form of procedure. Justice delayed in electoral matters is democracy denied. To the National Assembly, we say: Strengthen the law. If the Electoral Act has loopholes that allow parties to evade INEC monitoring, close them. If the penalties for electoral fraud are too weak to deter criminals, make them severe. You are the elected representatives of the people – act like it. If the system fails you are the first victims. To civil society, the media, the academia, the Nigerian Bar Association, we say: Do not look away. Investigate these primaries. Publish the evidence. Name the fraudsters. Mobilize public opinion. Democracy dies when good people do nothing and it thrives when citizens refuse to be silent in the face of injustice.
13. And to every Nigerian voter, we say: Your power is your vote, but your vote is only as good as the choices on the ballot. Demand credible primaries. Reject parties that impose candidates. In 2027, let the ballot box be the coffin of political impunity. Vote not for the anointed, but for the qualified. Vote not for the highest bidder, but for the most capable. Vote as if the future of your children depends on it – because it actually does.
14. Today, Nigerians stand at a crossroads. The path to our left leads to the normalization of fraud, to the acceptance that Nigerian democracy is a theatrical performance staged by the elite for the entertainment of the masses. It leads to cynicism, apathy and the eventual collapse of civic faith. It leads to a Nigeria where the people are subjects, not citizens. And the path to our right leads to the hard work of democratic renewal. It requires courage from INEC, integrity from the judiciary, vigilance from the media and civil society and participation from the people. It is the harder path. But it is the only path that leads to the Nigeria we dream of – a Nigeria where leaders are chosen by the people, not imposed upon them; where votes count; where the arithmetic of democracy follows the logic of justice, not the whims of power.
15. The primaries of 2027 have shown us the rot. They have exposed the contempt with which the political class holds the Nigerian people. They have revealed the fragility of our democratic institutions. But they have also given us clarity. We now know what we are up against. We now see the enemy of democracy, and it is not some foreign invader – it is the corruption within our own house, the willingness of those who should know better to look away while the house burns. INEC, the nation is watching. Nigerians are waiting. Will you be the guardian of our democracy or its grave-digger? Will you enforce the law or will you bow to the powerful? Will you tell the truth about these primaries or will you help bury it? The answer to these questions will define not just the 2027 elections, but the future of the Nigerian republic. We cannot afford to get it wrong.
16. Every concerned Nigerian citizen who believes that democracy is too precious to be surrendered to fraud must view the silence of INEC, the media and the people in the face of evil is itself a form of evil.
