2026, Nigeria’s year of unlimited politicking

 

Welcome to 2026, Nigeria’s year of unlimited politicking. The Independent National Electoral Commission will next month, in line with provision of section 28 (1) of the Electoral Act 2022 publish Notice of Election for the next general polls. The section says “The Commission shall, not later than 360 days before the day appointed for holding of an election under this Act, publish a notice in each State of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory— (a) stating the date of the election; and (b) appointing the place at which nomination papers are to be delivered.

Ideally, this is the year that governance should be at its peak, but knowing Nigeria’s ruling elite, once INEC releases the Notice, governance will take the back seat while politics takes the centerstage. Last year despite being two years to the next general elections, INEC had to hold a stakeholder meeting to caution the political class to stop pre-mature campaigning. The whole of Abuja streets were taken over by billboards of politicians aspiring for elective positions in 2027. Similar developments were observed in many state capitals. This year being the eve of the next general election therefore will give politicians the latitude to play highwire politics.

Already, we are seeing alignment and re-alignment of political forces. Gale of defections have continued this new year with Plateau State governor, Caleb Muftwuang formally defecting to the All-Progressives Congress from the Peoples Democratic Party last Friday, January 2, 2026. The Deputy Governor of Rivers State, Professor Ngozi Odu and the Secretary to Rivers State Government, Benibo Anabraba, have both defected from the PDP to APC this week. On the New Year’s Eve several serving senators, House of Representatives and State Houses of Assembly members of Igbo extraction formally defected with former Anambra State governor, Peter Obi from various political parties to African Democratic Congress in Enugu.

The most exciting political news for me thus far is that the ADC is beginning to shape up as the main opposition party ahead of 2027 General Elections. Remember that Peoples Democratic Party has been playing the role of main opposition party since 2015 when APC won the presidential seat and retained it over three electoral cycles in 2015, 2019 and 2023. However, the palpable fear is that with the lingering intra party crisis in the PDP and Labour Party, Nigeria has become a dominant one-party state.

With serving lawmakers at federal and state level openly announcing their defection into ADC in Enugu last week, ADC is poised to give APC a run for its money. This is heart warming for me as it will break the culture of impunity in APC and put the governing party at the centre on its toes. Already, Mallam Bolaji Abdulahi who is the National Publicity Secretary of ADC is doing a great job issuing statements and having a media round condemning some of the alleged bad policies of APC and proffering alternatives. Yesterday, January 6, 2026, I was on Politics Nationwide with former Director General of Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria who is now a chieftain of ADC, Dr. Ladan Salihu to review what the political climate will look like in 2026.

Once INEC issues Notice of Election in February, some of the major political activities that will happen in the course of the year include: Holding of party congresses and conventions as well as primaries. This will dovetail to nomination of candidates. Once these exercises are concluded, open campaign will start in earnest and this will take place for a whole 150 days (section 94 (1) of Electoral Act 2022) from around September and October to February and  March depending on when INEC will propose to hold national and state elections. One of the major controversies that may happen in the course of the year is whether INEC should hold state elections first and national elections later or vice versa. Recall that presidential, senatorial and House of Representatives elections which are considered national elections are usually held first before governorship and state house of assembly polls are held. The assumption of opposition parties who usually call for state level elections to be held first is that if the federal or national elections are held first, it can have bandwagon effects as many states will want to align with the party that produce the president.

The bandwagon effect is never sacrosanct. Voters are politically savvy. In 2023, in Oyo and Rivers States, APC won the presidential elections in those states while PDP won the governorship polls there two weeks after. Similar thing happened in Lagos State where Labour Party caused an upset by winning the overall votes in Lagos only for APC to win the governorship and most state of assembly positions two weeks after. In 2023, about five serving governors (Enugu, Abia, Plateau, Cross River, and Benue) as at then lost their bid to win election into senate despite having been governors of their respective states for eight years. Governor Bello Matawalle of Zamfara lost his reelection bid while about 70 per cent of the senators, House of Representatives and State Houses of Assembly members did not win their reelection too.

As I said on Politics Nationwide on Radio Nigeria network yesterday, the most unfortunate thing about the preparations for 2027 General Elections is that there is still uncertainty around the legal framework for the elections. The National Assembly hasn’t finished work on constitutional and electoral reforms. INEC therefore had to plan for the 2027 General Elections using the 2022 Electoral Act and the 1999 Constitution, as altered while waiting for the NASS to conclude work on the 6^th constitutional alterations and the review of the extant Electoral Act. In the course of last year, I pleaded with NASS to expedite actions on these pieces of legislation so that INEC can do proper costing and planning for 2027 elections.

Am appealing to INEC to also announce and issue licences to new political parties early enough to aid their preparations for the next general elections. Recall that INEC pre-qualified 14 political associations out of 171 initial applications to proceed to the next stage of the registration process as of September 2025.  Following a review of documentation submitted via an online portal, only eight of these 14 associations completed the requirements to advance further into the final verification phase as of October 2025.  I expect this exercise to be concluded in earnest in this month.

In this 2026, expect all programmes and policies of government to be viewed with political lens. While the opposition parties will be doing their best to demarket the ruling party, the ruling party will be trying to ward off the opposition parties and try to consolidate its hold on power. There will be a lot of politics on economic and security pgrogrammes and achievements of the ruling party. In this era of Artificial Intelligence, there will be a lot of misinformation and disinformation; fake news and hate speeches ahead of the next general elections. My fervent appeal is that Nigeria’s political class will prioritise issues-based campaign and not dwell on frivolities.

I.G: @jideojong