Nigeria is entering the final stretch before the 2027 general elections, and the fight over who gets on the ballot is already turning sharp. On Monday, political commentator Sumner Sambo warned on Arise News’ Morning Show that the compressed timetable leaves parties with only two weeks to settle nominations, a window he said could bring “a lot of weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
The pressure point is the primary election process itself. Under the 2026 Electoral Act, political parties may choose direct primaries or consensus candidacy, but the law is strict about how consensus works: only cleared aspirants can take part, each must voluntarily withdraw, each must endorse one remaining aspirant, and the choice must be ratified at a special convention or nomination congress at designated centers across the national, state, senatorial, federal and state constituency levels. If one aspirant refuses to step aside, the party must hold a direct primary, and INEC will not recognize any consensus candidate unless all three conditions are met.
That legal framework was meant to settle a debate that dates back to 2022, when former President Muhammadu Buhari pushed the National Assembly to add consensus candidacy as a third mode in the Electoral Act. By 2026, however, the law had settled on only two legally approved modes for candidate selection, even as parties retained the freedom to set their own procedures for direct primaries. Now, with political parties racing to meet a highly compressed nomination timetable, the dispute is not over whether consensus is allowed, but over whether it is being used as the law intended.
Samson Itodo, a long-time election reform advocate, argued that many parties are not building consensus from the bottom up but imposing it from the top. He said party leaders, godfathers and so-called stakeholders are anointing candidates before any competitive process begins, while other aspirants are pressured to withdraw, step aside or are simply ignored. In his view, what is happening is not consensus at all, but “elite imposition,” a system he described as “organized theft of the people’s franchise and the proscription of political aspiration.” He added that consensus candidacy has become a way for elites to capture party structures while speaking the language of unity, cost reduction and stability.
There is a real distinction in the law between manipulated consensus and legitimate agreement. A genuine convergence of opinion can exist when one aspirant commands broad support and gives a party its strongest chance of victory. In those cases, parties can rally behind a single electable candidate. The friction comes when that agreement is manufactured, because the statute requires voluntary withdrawal and endorsement, not coercion dressed up as harmony.
The controversy is not abstract. reported that the Yobe South All Progressive Congress Christian Forum unanimously endorsed Baba Malam Wali, the former secretary to the Yobe State Government, for the 2027 Yobe governorship election. The endorsement was contained in a communique signed on Saturday in Damaturu by the forum’s Convener, Omale John Achimugu, who said, “We are not just political supporters; we are partners in Yobe State’s collective destiny.” The forum also pledged peaceful, issue-based campaigns and support for democratic processes.
That endorsement shows how consensus language can still be used in a way that sounds orderly on paper but may be contested in practice once party rules, rival aspirants and electoral deadlines collide. Sambo said the coming days will bring more pressure, not less, and urged voters to study the Electoral Act closely because many parties, in his words, will try to run foul of it. That warning lands squarely today: the law gives parties room to choose, but it also gives aggrieved aspirants a clear basis to challenge any shortcut that skips the three strict conditions. For the parties, the question is no longer whether consensus is popular. It is whether they can use it without triggering a crisis before the ballots are even printed.
