APC Faces Backlash Over Controversial Candidates’ List: PDP, LP, SDP React

By: Abudu Olalekan

The APC stepped on a rake. Again.

Last week, the ruling party dropped it’s revised list of National Assembly candidates for 2027. Sounds routine, right? Except it wasn’t. Names had changed. Winners from the May primaries? Replaced overnight. In their place? New faces. Some of them sitting senators who had originally lost.

Now the party is catching heat from everywhere.

The PDP is practically popping champagne. The Labour Party is calling it a mockery of democracy. Even the SDP says the move is reckless. But the APC? They told the opposition to focus on their own houses, which according to them, are on fire.

Here’s how it all went down.

The party had directed state chapters to release candidate names and start INEC nomination processes. But behind the scenes, the May Primary Election Appeal Commission was busy reviewing petitions. When the dust settled, the National Working Committee overturned several senatorial results across nine states.

Kogi. Abia. Benue. Taraba. Ondo. Niger. Kwara. Kaduna. Ebonyi.

In those places, the NWC yanked tickets from fresh winners and handed them back to incumbents. Six serving senators got their spots back. Sunday Karimi reclaimed Kogi West. Emmanuel Udende returned in Benue North-East. Titus Zam got Benue North-West. Shuaibu Isa Lau held Taraba North. Adeniyi Adegbonmire won Ondo Central. Olajide Ipinsagba took Ondo North.

And in Abia South? Prince Paul Ikonne, former NALDA boss, edged out Edinburgh Erondu.

The biggest casualty? Gabriel Suswam. The former Benue governor thought he had Benue North-East in the bag. The appeal committee had other ideas. They nullified his win and gave the ticket back to Udende.

Naturally, people are furious. Not a good look.

The PDP’s National Publicity Secretary, Jungudo Mohammed, didn’t even try to hide his excitement. Speaking with Reportersroom he said the confusion is exactly what his party need to reclaim power.

“With the change of the candidate list, there is confusion in the APC. Let them continue to remain in confusion. It is our joy to see that they remain in confusion so that we can take advantage of that and take over power.”

He wasn’t done. Mohammed threw open the door for APC defectors, name-dropping recent high-profile arrivals like Prof Iyabo Obasanjo and Prof Isa Pantami.

“We are ready to receive anyone who is tired of the APC’s confusion into the PDP,” he said.

The Labour Party was less amused and more angry. Their National Publicity Secretary, Ken Asogwa, told Reportersroom that swapping winners makes a mockery of the Electoral Act.

“For us in the Labour Party, we did not supplant people who won with people who did not win,” he stated. “If there are political parties that have been doing this, it is an aberration.”

Asogwa pointed back to 2023. Remember when some people who didn’t even run in primaries ended up as Senate President and senator from Yobe? Yeah, he brought that up. He argued that because courts let those slide back then, parties now feel emboldened to play musical chairs with tickets.

The ADC agrees this could cost the APC dearly. Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, their National Publicity Secretary, told Reportersroom that the ruling party has left too many members bitter.

“The crisis and confusion in the APC now are going to be their undoing in the next election,” he warned.

Abdullahi said the ADC won’t touch duly elected candidates unless they withdraw voluntarily. He claimed his party ran direct, competitive primaries while others just handpicked favorites under the guise of consensus.

The SDP was even more blunt. Rufus Aiyenigba, their spokesman, called the whole thing reckless and anti-democratic, though he admitted it’s the APC’s internal mess.

“At least, Nigerians can now decide whether this is the kind of system they want to continue with or not,” he said. “We cannot dignify the shenanigans going on in that party with our response.”

But not everyone is bashing the APC.

Dr Yunusa Tanko, National Coordinator of the Obidient Movement Worldwide, said parties have constitutional rights to handle their own candidate selection. He cited Supreme Court rulings giving parties broad authority over nominations.

“Look at the case in the NDC, which also set up an appeal committee that found some of the petitions before it very challenging,” he explained. “Most importantly, all aggrieved persons must be carried along in line with the party’s constitution.”

The NDC’s Osa Director backed this up too. He told Reportersroom that Section 84 of the Electoral Act allows parties to choose candidates through direct primaries or consensus. If irregularities pop up, switching methods midstream is their prerogative.

“Politics, like every other human process, is dynamic,” Director said. “If, at any point, a party chooses, at the stage of selecting a candidate, to change its mind, that is its cup of tea.”

He denied any imposition happening in his own party, insisting the NDC is addressing grievances fairly.

So why did the APC do it?

Bala Ibrahim, the party’s Director of Publicity, said the changes were about fairness. Pure and simple. He insisted the appeal mechanism worked exactly as intended.

“It shows fairness and justice. It shows the willingness of our party to go by the wishes of the people,” he defended. “If there is any element of injustice, that thing will be addressed in a way and manner that will be in line with, or in tandem with, the law.”

Then he took a swipe at the critics. Ibrahim dismissed the PDP as so factionalized nobody knows if it’s a party or an NGO anymore. He said the APC is too busy delivering dividends to worry about “the shenanigans of an organisation or association that has no standing at all.”

He expressed confidence that APC members would stay loyal because the party believes in democracy and good sportsmanship.

“Ours is a party of people who believe in the sanctity of democracy,” he boasted. “We are made up of people who are good sportsmen, not losers like the PDP. When they lose, they become disenfranchised.”

Meanwhile, INEC had already warned it would reject candidates who didn’t emerge from monitored primaries. That warning is still hanging over the APC’s revised list like a dark cloud. Whether these substitutions hold up legally? That’s a question for another day.

But one thing is clear. The road to 2027 just got a lot bumpier for the ruling party.