By Mohammed Bello Doka
22 May, 2026.
A wave of celebration has swept through Nigeria’s political class following last week’s landmark Federal High Court judgment. Many see Justice Mohammed Umar’s ruling, which invalidated key portions of INEC’s 2027 election timetable, as a triumph for democracy over bureaucratic overreach. The court held that INEC lacks statutory authority to fix deadlines for party primaries, to abridge the 120-day period for submitting candidates’ particulars, to shorten the 90-day window for candidate substitution or to fix campaign end dates. Political parties, including the African Democratic Congress, have hailed the decision as a vindication of their objections. But behind the euphoria lies a dangerous truth: the All Progressives Congress is already plotting to weaponise this judgment to save itself from a quagmire of its own making. Nigerians should not celebrate. Not yet.
The ruling party is bleeding from self-inflicted wounds. President Bola Tinubu’s southern base is shattered. The South-West is divided between Tinubu loyalists, a resurgent Peter Obi and a determined Seyi Makinde. The South-East remains predominantly Obi’s territory, while other southern voices nurse their own ambitions. In the North, Atiku Abubakar stands poised as the most dominant candidate, commanding a united northern front that he insists will rally behind him as his major political base. The APC’s own primary elections have descended into chaos. In state after state, the party has been torn apart by violent clashes, accusations of result manipulation and open rebellion. In Ondo, an aspirant who rejected his primary result warned that the crisis would affect the president’s re-election. In Delta, President Tinubu’s body language for a preferred candidate was openly defied by the state governor. In Kwara, the governorship primary was abruptly halted as confusion reigned. The party is not just fractured. It is overloaded, bursting at the seams with aggrieved aspirants, rebellious governors and a national leadership that cannot control its own house.
This is where the court judgment becomes a weapon. The ruling now gives political parties until September 2026 to submit updated membership registers. The APC will exploit this window to send its own members into opposition parties as moles. The African Democratic Congress has already alleged that powerful figures within the APC are plotting to infiltrate and destabilise the opposition by imposing an expelled member as its national chairman. The ADC has repeatedly accused the ruling party of trying to capture or manufacture opposition platforms for its own survival. With the new timeline, expect a flood of APC operatives masquerading as defectors, entering rival parties only to trigger legal crises, provoke factional wars and render those parties incapable of fielding valid candidates.
The opposition’s vulnerability is staggering. The Peoples Democratic Party is virtually dead, with no governors and a national convention nullified by the Supreme Court. The main opposition platforms are the African Democratic Congress and the upstart National Democratic Congress. Yet these two are at war with each other. Peter Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso have abandoned the ADC to join the NDC, leaving Atiku Abubakar isolated in the ADC. This internal opposition civil war is exactly what the APC needs. Worse still, the Kwankwaso card is not working in the North. Festus Keyamo, a senior APC chieftain, has argued that Kwankwaso has boxed himself into the tightest corner of his political career, noting that Kwankwaso will not support a northern candidate because it would delay his own presidential ambition for another 16 years. If Kwankwaso cannot deliver the North, the APC will need to recruit a new spoiler fast. Otherwise, Tinubu will go into 2027 with a divided south arrayed against a united north that is ready to fight him. The speed at which this judgment was delivered, barely weeks after the suit was filed, tells its own story.
Beyond the court ruling, other dangers lurk. The Electoral Act 2026 contains explosive loopholes. Section 63 allows any ballot paper without an official INEC mark to be counted if a returning officer is satisfied it is genuine. A former INEC chairman once warned that politicians with access to security features would simply print their own ballots. Section 31’s 90-day substitution window, now fully unlocked, allows the APC to swap candidates at the last minute, planting its own operatives on opposition tickets. And the transfer of collation powers to magistrates under Sections 137 and 138 introduces judicial actors with far less insulation from political pressure than regular INEC staff. These provisions, combined with the court’s removal of all INEC-imposed deadlines, create an environment where manipulation can flourish without constraint.
The opposition cannot afford to be complacent. The APC is not fighting a battle of popularity. It is fighting a war of structural control. And it is winning. Nigerians who are celebrating this judgment must look beyond the headlines. What looks like a victory for party independence is, in the hands of a desperate ruling party, a carefully opened back door to chaos, infiltration and democratic subversion. The celebration is premature. The real fight is just beginning.
Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via [email protected]
Abuja Network News
Tags
Opinion