9 January,2026
by Mohammed Bello Doka
The controversy did not begin with INEC. It began with a confession.
When the APC National chairman publicly explained that the party deliberately avoided hosting ceremonies to receive defecting Muslim governors during Ramadan, he said the quiet part out loud: Ramadan matters. Fasting matters. Religious sensitivity matters. Political activities, he admitted, must sometimes bend to faith.
That single statement changed everything.
Because once a ruling party openly acknowledges that Ramadan requires accommodation, restraint, and respect, every other political decision taken during the same period becomes fair game for scrutiny. From that moment, the argument ended—not in INEC’s favour, but against it.
And this is precisely why my earlier article, dismissed by some as alarmist, now stands vindicated.
If Ramadan is too sacred for ceremonies and celebrations, how exactly is it suitable for elections?
If party pageantry must pause out of respect for fasting Muslims, why must Muslim voters endure hours of queuing, trekking, dehydration, and exposure to Abuja’s brutal dry-season heat simply to exercise their civic rights?
Which Islam is APC respecting—and which Islam is INEC disregarding?
The facts are stubborn. The FCT Area Council elections were fixed squarely during Ramadan, at the peak of Abuja’s dry season. February in Abuja is unforgiving. Temperatures regularly soar above 35°C. Voting in the FCT is not a leisurely stroll. It involves long distances to polling units, extended accreditation processes, malfunctioning machines, delays, and endless queues.
For non-fasting voters, the hardship is mitigated by food and water. For fasting Muslims, there is no such relief. The burden is unequal by design. That is not neutrality. That is discrimination by scheduling.
This was the warning I raised earlier. It was brushed aside with insults, mockery, and accusations of paranoia. Today, APC itself has supplied the evidence.
By its own admission, Ramadan is not a neutral time. It requires consideration. It demands adjustment. It calls for restraint. APC has said so. INEC ignored it.
And this is where the contradiction becomes fatal.
If Ramadan is sacred enough to delay receptions for defecting Muslim governors, then it is sacred enough to avoid elections that physically punish Muslim voters. You cannot have it both ways. Either Ramadan matters, or it does not. Either fasting imposes real limitations, or it does not.
APC says it does. INEC acts as if it does not.
This is why the attempt to pretend that “this has nothing to do with religion” collapses on contact with reality. Ramadan is religion. Fasting is religion. The inability to eat, drink, or rest during daylight hours is not a metaphor. It is a lived obligation. Any policy that knowingly increases the physical burden of fasting Muslims is inherently religious in impact, no matter how bureaucratic it is dressed.
Which brings us to the context many would rather avoid: leadership.
INEC does not operate in a vacuum. Decisions are not made by ghosts. They are made by people with histories, records, and perceptions. Past controversies surrounding the current INEC leadership—particularly language and positions that painted Northern Muslims in hostile terms—did not evaporate with appointment letters. They linger in public memory. They shape interpretation.
So when elections are fixed during Ramadan in Abuja’s harshest season, interpretation becomes inevitable. Not because Muslims are paranoid, but because patterns exist.
There are only two explanations for how this election date survived approval, and both are damning.
Either INEC did not know that the election would fall during Ramadan—an astounding level of incompetence for a national electoral body in a Muslim-majority country.
Or INEC knew and proceeded anyway, accepting Muslim fatigue, dehydration, and reduced turnout as acceptable collateral damage.
Ignorance at this level is failure. Knowledge without mitigation is contempt.
Intent no longer matters when impact is this predictable.
Predictably, apologists have emerged. Loudly. Aggressively. And foolishly.
The first group is the most tragic: Muslims who insist this has “nothing to do with religion.” They speak with the confidence of people who believe political loyalty can suspend religious reality. They deny that Ramadan is religious, deny that fasting is burdensome, deny that Muslim voters are uniquely affected. In doing so, they do not sound enlightened. They sound like men who have learned to explain away their own disadvantage for proximity to power.
A Muslim who cannot recognise structural harm to Muslim voters is not neutral. He is compromised.
The second group is more familiar: Christian APC supporters who argue that INEC did nothing wrong. They invoke procedure, legality, and neutrality. Yet one question exposes the hollowness of that argument: would these same voices accept elections fixed on Easter Sunday? Would they shrug if voting were scheduled during prolonged Christian fasts or pilgrimages?
Neutrality that consistently burdens only one faith is not neutrality. It is selective empathy masquerading as principle.
What unites both groups is simple: loyalty to APC over justice. They defend hardship they will not bear. They rationalise exclusion they will not experience. And in doing so, they mistake obedience for wisdom.
As expected, the response to my earlier article was not limited to debate. It included insults, smears, lies, and blackmail—especially targeted at writers from the Muslim North. The objective is clear: intimidate, exhaust, silence.
Let me be clear. It will not work.
Insults do not change facts. Threats do not invalidate arguments. Blackmail only exposes desperation. I will not be bullied into silence because silence is precisely what allows injustice to mature into policy.
Others may retreat. I will not.
The democratic consequences of this decision are obvious. Fasting voters will delay participation until late afternoon, overcrowding polling units. Others will stay away entirely. Turnout will drop. Outcomes will be shaped. The election may satisfy procedural checklists, but its moral legitimacy will remain contested.
And hovering above all this is presidential silence. The absence of intervention from the highest office is not neutral. It is consent. When predictable harm is ignored, responsibility spreads upward.
So let us ask the questions that must be asked.
If Ramadan deserves respect for ceremonies, why not for voting?
If APC can recognise fasting as a burden, why can’t INEC?
Was there any Muslim in the room when this election date was approved—and if there was, did that voice matter?
At what point does strategy become hostility?
APC’s own words have settled the matter. What was once dismissed as fear now stands confirmed by contradiction. Ramadan is respected when power is inconvenienced. It is ignored when Muslims are burdened.
That is not administration. That is exclusion.
Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via [email protected]
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Opinion