Anxiety Mounts As APC, PDP, ADC, NDC, LP Delay Release Of Final Candidate Lists

Weeks after concluding their primary elections, the major political parties are yet to release clear-cut lists of aspirants for the 2027 general elections, sparking fear among aspirants and raising questions about transparency in the nomination process.

The parties affected are the All Progressives Congress (APC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), African Democratic Congress (ADC), Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) and the Labour Party (LP).

The development is coming even as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had announced that it would issue official access codes to political parties for the Candidate Nomination Portal on June 26, 2026.

Findings reveal many governorship, National Assembly and State Assembly aspirants were left in the dark about their political future as parties continued to hold back final nomination lists.

The delay has sparked allegations of internal crisis and claims that some parties are deliberately delaying the publication to reduce chances for aggrieved aspirants to approach the court to challenge the outcome of the primaries.

The APC admitted that the delay was causing growing concern among members of the party.

Senate President, Godswill Akpabio had recently warned the party leadership to be cautious in handling the release of the final list.

“The party is everything. “I’m just begging the party to please make sure that when they release their final list, we are all in it. Some of my people have high blood pressure,” Akpabio said.

APC National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, when contacted, simply told THISDAY that the list would be released “soon.”

But appeal committees were still reviewing complaints arising from the primaries, party insiders said.

“The appeal committees are still sitting as we are talking,” said a senior party official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “I don’t think the party will issue any list as it will create a lot of problems,” said another leader.

Another party chief said the leadership was “managing” tensions well to prevent sabotage and protest votes by members ahead of the elections.

The NDC has defended its decision not to reveal the names of successful aspirants saying there is no law requiring parties to do so.

The National Publicity Secretary, Osa Director, said all the candidates that participated in the primaries had been informed of the results.

“The protocol does not require public reporting of results,” he said.

He said the party met all legal requirements and that INEC has the records already.

“So, INEC already has a list of candidates as it is,” he said.

The June 26 deadline, he said, was only for the political parties to check and upload their final nominations to the commission.

The faction of the PDP loyal to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, said it was waiting for the party’s National Executive Committee to ratify its candidate lists.

The National Publicity Secretary, Haruna Jungudo, said that all nomination exercises and appeals had been concluded under the supervision of INEC.

““we have done all nomination exercises including appeals by those aggrieved in the conduct of the exercise.

In this regard, INEC supervised our exercise, the primary nomination exercise and subsequent appeals.

“We are now waiting for the NEC meeting which is expected to be sooner to ratify the exercise. “Only after the ratification by the NEC will we as a political party upload the outcome of the exercise to INEC,” he said.

The ADC also said it had conducted all its primary elections but insisted that it was still within INEC’s timetable.

We have conducted the primaries for all categories of elections and the processes were observed by INEC,” National Publicity Secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi said. “We are on the approved timetable of INEC, so I can say we are just waiting for our time.

The Labour Party also said it has cleared 1,211 candidates for different elective positions and will start uploading their names on the INEC portal on June 28.

The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Ken Asogwa, said the nominations have been approved by the National Executive Committee.