The Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) has accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of removing candidates nominated by the party for the 2027 general elections and replacing them with names unknown to the party.
The party’s national chairman, Moses Zuwoghe, made the allegation while reacting to the list of candidates for the State Houses of Assembly elections published by INEC on Sunday.
Zuwoghe said the list, particularly the names published for constituencies in Anambra State, amounted to a deliberate attempt to sabotage the opposition party ahead of the elections and create disaffection among its supporters.
He alleged that INEC published 10 names as NDC candidates for various constituencies in Anambra, despite the fact that the individuals were not nominated by the party and did not emerge from its primaries or appeal process.
According to him, the development was particularly disturbing because Anambra is the home state of the party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi.
The statement read in part, “The Nigeria Democratic Congress, NDC, totally condemns the action of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and its officials over the uploading and publication of unauthorized names in various constituencies, principally in the Anambra State House of Assembly, where nine 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.”
The party chairman called on the INEC Chairman to immediately investigate the matter and establish how the disputed names found their way into the commission’s published list.
He said the investigation should not be limited to Anambra, alleging that a similar pattern had been observed in other states, including Benue and Imo.
Zuwoghe said the development had embarrassed the party, its leadership and its genuine candidates, while also generating disaffection among NDC supporters in Nigeria and the Diaspora.
He further alleged that the party’s preliminary internal investigation was pointing to possible complicity by some INEC officials in the alleged substitution of its candidates.
The NDC chairman specifically listed the affected Anambra constituencies as Onitsha South 1, Onitsha South 2, Orumba North, Anaocha 1, IdemiliNorth, Njikoka 1, Nnewi South, Nnewi South 2, Ayamelum and Dunukofia.
Zuwoghe said that following the conclusion of the party’s primaries and the appeal process, stakeholders from Anambra, the party leadership, representatives of Obi and members of the party’s appeals panel had produced and signed off on a final list of candidates.
He alleged that problems arose when the approved list was uploaded to the INEC portal using the access code provided to the party by the electoral commission.
According to him, nine of the names were kept by INEC officials in “Pending” status, with the commission allegedly claiming that the names were already in its system because they had been submitted by officials who monitored the party’s primaries.
The chairman said the party formally challenged the disputed names and submitted the names of its actual candidates, alongside the necessary covering letter, but INEC allegedly refused to make the changes.
He further accused the commission of bypassing the party by obtaining Form EC-9 directly from the disputed candidates and subsequently uploading and publishing their names.
Zuwoghe described the alleged action as a violation of the Electoral Act and INEC’s own guidelines, arguing that the commission had no authority to impose candidates on a political party.
He said that where INEC believed there was a discrepancy between candidates submitted by a party and information obtained from its monitoring officials, the appropriate action would have been to leave the affected positions blank pending resolution of the dispute, rather than publish names not submitted by the party.
“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,” he said.
The NDC chairman also alleged that the development was part of an emerging pattern in which INEC allegedly prevents opposition political parties from uploading their authentic candidates while “handpicking” other names.
He warned that such a situation could create internal crises within political parties and undermine confidence in the electoral process.
Zuwoghe vowed that the NDC would pursue the matter through all available legal channels, including approaching a court of competent jurisdiction to challenge the published list and seek the restoration of its candidates.
He urged members of the public and NDC supporters to disregard the disputed names, insisting that the individuals published by INEC were not the party’s candidates for the affected constituencies.
