NDC Accuses INEC Of Smuggling ‘Impostors’ Into 2027 Candidate List, Vows Court Action

By Chimezie Godfrey

The Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) has accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of allegedly removing its nominated candidates for the 2027 general elections and replacing them with names the party says are unknown, unauthorised and not submitted by its leadership.

The party made the allegation while reacting to the list of candidates for the State Houses of Assembly elections published by INEC on Sunday, with NDC National Chairman, Sen. Moses Cleopas Zuwoghe, describing the development as a deliberate attempt to sabotage the party ahead of the elections.

According to Zuwoghe, the situation is particularly disturbing in Anambra State, the home state of the party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, where he said nine names not nominated by the party were published as NDC candidates.

“The Nigeria Democratic Congress, NDC, totally condemns the action of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and it’s officials over the uploading and publication of unauthorized names in various constituencies, principally in the Anambra State House of Assembly (home state of our Presidential Candidate, His Excellency Peter Obi), where nine (9) names, unknown to the party; names not authorized by the party; names not sent by the party to INEC, in accordance with the law, have now been uploaded and published as candidates of the party”.

“We call on the INEC Chairman to urgently and immediately cause an investigation into the matter and unravel how this came to be.”

The NDC chairman said the investigation must cover other constituencies across the country, including Benue and Imo, where he alleged that a similar pattern of replacing authentic candidates with candidates allegedly selected by INEC had emerged.

“The same investigation should also be carried out in other constituencies like Benue, Imo and others, as this mischief has not only cased an embarrassment to the party, its leadership and genuine candidates, but has also caused a lot of disaffection among the millions of the party’s supporters all over the country and in the Diaspora.

“We, as a party, are also carrying out our own independent investigation, the preliminary findings of which are already pointing to the complicity of INEC officials in foisting names purporting to be our candidates, but who are not from us, and using the uploading process as a tool of blackmail and intimidation against the party, and getting those names to be uploaded and published, for whatever purpose or ulterior motive”.

Zuwoghe listed the names allegedly smuggled into the NDC’s candidate list in Anambra State as follows:

The party chairman insisted that the NDC did not upload the names and said he was personally responsible for safeguarding the code issued to the party for the uploading of its candidates.

“I, as Chairman of the Party and custodian of the code given to the NDC for the upload of our candidates, never uploaded those names, and I unequivocally state that the party did not also upload those nine names.”

He explained that following the conclusion of the party’s primaries and appeal process, stakeholders from Anambra, working with the party leadership, representatives of its presidential candidate and the Appeals Panel, produced and signed off on a final list.

“What happened was that after the conclusion of our primaries and the appeal process (which is also a part and parcel of the primaries and candidates nomination process), the stakeholders from Anambra working with the party leadership, representatives of our presidential candidate, and the Appeals panel, which is the tradition of our party, produced a final list of candidates, a list which was signed off on by all.

“However, when that final list was uploaded to the INEC portal, using the code given us by the Electoral commission, the INEC officials who are in complete control of the backend of the portal kept nine of the names on ‘Pending’ status.

“Their claim was that their system already had those names, which they said were submitted by their officials who monitored the NDC primaries on the field.”

According to him, the party formally challenged the names and submitted the names of its actual candidates with the necessary covering letter, but INEC allegedly refused to alter the entries.

“Even after the NDC had formally appealed those names, on the ground that they did not come from the party’s nomination process, and also sent the names of the actual candidates nominated by the party, with the necessary covering letter, INEC remained adamant.”

Zuwoghe further alleged that INEC officials bypassed the party and obtained Form EC-9 directly from the disputed candidates before uploading and publishing their names.

“To further confirm that there was a predetermined effort on the part of INEC to impose the said nine candidates on the party, and embarrass both NDC and Mr. Peter Obi, INEC went behind the NDC to collect the Form EC-9 directly from the candidates, bypassing the party, and uploading same. It then went ahead to publish the controversial names as authentic candidates of the party.

“This not only runs against the grain of the Electoral Act and INEC ‘s own guidelines, it is simply unacceptable,” the NDC National Chairman said.

According to him, INEC should have left the affected spaces blank if there was any disagreement over the candidates submitted by the party, rather than allegedly preloading names the NDC did not nominate.

According to him, “the worst INEC can do in a situation whereby the names submitted by the party do not tally with those INEC claimed to have received from its monitoring teams on the field is to leave the space blank, not to preload fictitious names and prevent the party from loading its genuine candidates.”

“At the very worst, INEC could have left us with no candidates for those positions, if they knew they were unwilling to engage us in addressing any perceived anomaly.”

Sen. Cleopas also frowned at what he described as an emerging pattern in which INEC allegedly prevents political parties from uploading their preferred candidates while “criminally handpicking candidates for the parties and instigating a crisis of confidence and internal disharmony within the said parties.”

He said the development appeared to have affected opposition parties particularly.

The NDC National Chairman vowed that the party would pursue the matter through every available legal avenue until its authentic candidates are restored.

The party, he said, would approach a court of competent jurisdiction to challenge the alleged substitution and seek redress.

“Even as we move to approach the court of competent jurisdiction to seek redress and restore our authentic candidates, the general public and our millions of supporters should note that these are not our candidates.”

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