INEC Yet To Receive 2027 Election Funds 21 Days To Deadline

With 21 days remaining to the statutory deadline for the release of election funds, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has not received money for the conduct of the 2027 general elections. The funding concerns are coming on the back of INEC’s proposal of N873 billion for the conduct of 2027 elections.

The development comes as the electoral umpire also disclosed plans to conduct mock presidential election exercises to test its technology infrastructure ahead of the 2027 elections, while assuring Nigerians that the controversial glitches that affected the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal during the 2023 presidential election would not be repeated.

But as the electoral umpire grapples with preparations for the general elections holding in January and February, all eyes are on INEC as it releases the official access codes to political parties today to enable them upload their nominated candidates to the commission’s portal. The move is expected to end fears of delays by political parties in publishing the names of contestants for various elective positions.

Thus, the question of selection of running mates has continued to haunt the candidates of the front row contesting parties. There is uncertainty surrounding the selection of other flag-bearers, aside from the Nigeria Democratic Congress’ (NDC) choice of presidential candidate, Peter Obi, who picked former Kano State governor, Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, before he emerged as the party’s standard-bearer.

Parties whose leadership are still a subject of litigation in the courts are also of interest as it is only the faction recognised by INEC that would be given the access codes. Earlier this week, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike had dared the Tanimu Turaki faction of the party that the authentic PDP faction would be determined on June 26.

The Turaki-led Interim National Working Committee had said INEC on Wednesday validated all the candidates contesting elections on its platform. But Wike, who spoke at the NEC meeting, dared the Turaki group, saying, “June 26 is around the corner. Let’s see who INEC will give access code to upload their nominated candidates. Some of you picked forms out of the wrong place. This is the real place to choose from. Let’s see what happens June 26,” he said.
INEC National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Mohammed Haruna, yesterday expressed serious concerns during a closed-door fireside chat with selected journalists organised by the Peering Advocacy and Advancement Centre in Africa (PAACA) in partnership with Legis360 in Abuja, while speaking on preparations for the 2027 elections.

Section 3(3) of the Electoral Act, 2026, provides that election funds payable to the commission for any general election shall be released “not later than six months before the next general election”. The presidential and National Assembly elections are scheduled for 16 January 2027, so the six-month deadline is 16 July 2026, leaving just 21 days before the legal threshold is reached.

But while the statutory timeline has not yet been breached, Haruna warned that waiting until the last day allowed could greatly hamper preparations for an election expected to be one of the most challenging and expensive in Nigeria’s history.

The INEC commissioner said that the INEC had been under pressure to kick-start the procurement and replacement of critical election materials, many of which had long manufacturing and delivery lead times. He explained that election materials like ballot boxes, voting cubicles, ballot papers and technology infrastructure are not items one can just buy off the shelf.

Haruna said that INEC has commenced discussions on the procurement of new Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) devices, adding that some of the machines used in previous elections were either damaged, lost or could not be traced.

“We just returned from China, our Director of ICT on procurement because all the BVAS devices that were used for the last general election have not been recovered. He said: “You’ve got to put in orders and these things take time.

The Electoral Act allows for the release of election funds as far back as six months to the day of the election. However, election managers argue that in this age of contemporary elections, planning requires a much longer horizon, especially in a country with a population of more than 176,000 polling units and one of the largest electorates in the world.

But the concern is akin to the situations before the 2023 elections when election funding was released much earlier, allowing the commission to start procurement and planning much earlier.

In February, the commission wrote to the National Assembly that the N873 billion proposed expenditure would be used for election operations, administrative costs, election technology, capital projects and other miscellaneous requirements for the conduct of nationwide polls.
But Haruna said public debates tend to focus on the headline figure without looking at the realities of election management.

“This N800 billion plus sounds humongous, but when you calculate the average cost per voter, it is about six dollars per voter, which is reasonable for a country like Nigeria. People forget that nearly everything we use is imported. The BVAS devices are imported. Much of the election material is imported. “Exchange rate movements also impact costs,” he said.

Reacting, Executive Director of PAACA, Ezenwa Nwagwu, warned that the delay in the release of election funds could create avoidable crises that can undermine electoral integrity. He said late funding often forces quick decisions and compromises adherence to established procedures.

Meanwhile, Haruna noted the public concerns that lingered following the 2023 Presidential election, especially the technical issues that obstructed the uploading of results on the IReV portal, but maintained that the commission has gleaned crucial lessons and is resolved to avoid a repeat. He said INEC is considering conducting mock presidential election exercises in preparation for the 2027 polls, especially to test the robustness of its systems under conditions similar to nationwide voting.

He said the challenge during the presidential poll was different from other elections due to the huge volume of data and simultaneous transmissions.

The commissioner also noted what he called “the increasing judicial interference in election administration, with conflicting court orders and last-minute judgments.

Judicial decisions to change election arrangements close to polls have become a growing concern for the commission, forcing it to adjust logistics, technology and ballot design at the last minute, Haruna said. On how to address the problem, he revealed that INEC has scheduled meetings with the judicial officers beginning with the Supreme Court.

In some cases, the commission had to change ballot layouts close to the day of the election because of court orders, which Haruna said created operational headaches. Election management is a complex process of planning, procurement and systems configuration that requires certainty and predictability, he said.

The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) which has the incumbent, President Bola Tinubu as its defending champion for the 2027 poll, followed by the PDP, Labour Party (LP), New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) and Social Democratic Party (SDP) by the vote tally of the 2023 presidential election.

Almost all the presidential aspirants who participated in the 2023 ballot have changed platforms in the build-up to next year’s presidential election, except President Tinubu and Adebayo Adewole of the SDP.

APC/Tinubu: Doubting Shettima
THE ruling party has not made any comments on whether President Tinubu will keep his vice, Senator Kashim Shettima, as his running mate for the 2027 presidential election, especially after the controversy led to the exit of the party’s former national chairman, Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, last year.

Ganduje’s offence was the North East consultative meeting debacle where stakeholders were mobilized to Gombe State to endorse President Tinubu’s second term. Stakeholders from Shettima’s home state of Borno protested on that fateful June 15, 2025, when the then zonal chairman, Mustapha Saliu mounted the rostrum and announced the endorsement of Tinubu without mentioning the name of the Vice President.

The Deputy National Chairman (North), Bukar Dalori, attempted to correct the error by endorsing both Tinubu and Shettima for a joint presidential return ticket, but the boos and fisticuffs that ensued made the Borno delegates to think that the cat had been let out of the bag of the clandestine plot to substitute the former Borno State governor, Shettima.

However, Nigeria’s fortunes changed for the worse when the U.S. Senate adopted a motion that designated Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern for religious intolerance. The same faith ticket of Tinubu and Shettima was cited by the US lawmakers as a proof of persecution of Christians in the country.

In addition, Donald Trump, the U.S. President, expressed his intention to protect Christians in Nigeria, which led to renewed speculations that the former Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa, was being considered to replace Shettima as President Tinubu’s running mate in order to achieve religious balance on the APC ticket.

Just as insiders in the Tinubu Presidency explained that the former CDS was being brought in to be groomed in the ways of politics and governance as a minister, the subsequent appointment of Musa, from the North-West state of Kaduna, as Defence Minister, gave added flesh of authenticity to his speculated possible nomination as presidential running mate.

Before anyone knows who would deputise President Tinubu on the APC ballot, just a few insiders and the president himself, the names would be uploaded and the window for substitution would close.

ADC/Atiku: Amaechi’s odd preference
The ADC is beset by a number of challenges, including leadership disputes and parallel structures. The Gombe faction has picked Anambra’s self-styled political godfather Chris Uba as its presidential candidate while the faction loyal to the party’s 2023 presidential candidate, Dumebi Kachikwu has kept him as presidential contender.

As the various litigations challenging the National Working Committee (NWC) led by Senator David Mark are still at trial and appellate levels, the Mark leadership held the party’s Presidential primary that threw up the former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar as winner amidst complaints from his rivals.

The party’s stakeholders prevailed on the former Transportation Minister, Barrister Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi and Banker, Mohammed Hayatu-Deen who were also ADC presidential aspirants to accept to be his running mate in a bid to contain the grievances by the other two aspirants who had objected to be a presidential sparring partner.

Amaechi, who also contested the APC presidential ticket against Tinubu, churned out some conditionalities to guarantee his acceptance as the vice-presidential runner, to make sure that he was not rendered redundant in the scheme of things.

They (Atiku’s supporters) started to fly the kite of a possible substitution of Amaechi on the presidential ballot, affronted by what Atiku’s inner men called cheekiness. Amaechi’s supporters convinced him to go ahead with a court case against the ADC presidential primary to thwart that move. By June 27, he was not uploaded on the INEC portal.

Problems of Choosing a Running Mate
The selection of running mates for governorship and presidential elections has been a bone of contention for long during elections. In 2023, it was the failure of the former Vice President Atiku Abubakar to nominate the runner-up in the PDP presidential primary as a balm for the wounds that factionalised the party, that led to another damning defeat by the APC.

Religion and zonal balances sometimes determine who and from where a running should be sourced for the flagbearer. At any rate, a key consideration always is the electoral weight of the possible candidate and other factors of funding capacity, easy name and face recognition.

Dr Maurice Vunobolki, PDP Governorship candidate for Adamawa, who is yet to choose his running mate, said in an interview, that in the choice of his deputy, “it is very important that my running mate should be transparent, must have a good pedigree, must be energetic, must be well educated and exposed, someone that is reliable, that we can rely on, and also has the acceptability of people”.

It was not his sole choice, but the stakeholders of the party must be involved in the selection of a running mate, he said, even as he maintained that his input is also needed to “an extent that the running mate must also come in with quite a lot of transparency, pedigree, experience and exposure.”

“Well, I know that it is the duty of the flag bearer to get his running mate but then, party structures are involved in getting running mates. Now, because you can’t just go and say I’m going to pick somebody who has no input in what the political fortunes are going to be like. So you have to be involved in the selection of a running mate, but the party structures are very important in doing that.

“I think usually they have pencilled like three different nominees. Based on what I have mentioned now, the criteria I gave out, we’re able to take a running mate that is on the ground as well. No, not yet, but we’ve identified some people, but not a particular individual. “We have about five that are very good that have the pedigree, the experience, the exposure that will fit into that office but the stakeholders will have the final say from these five.

Fallout of Ondo APC primaries: Anxiety, power play
In Ondo state, aspirants who contested the Senate and House of Representatives tickets are in a state of anxiety as the party moves to upload the list of candidates on the portal today. The various political camps in the state have expressed optimism and hope that their candidates will emerge victorious, though the fate of most of the aspirants is still unknown with the results of the party primaries held last month still not resolved.

The APC has not officially published a final list of its standard-bearers for the nine House of Representatives constituencies and three senatorial districts in the state, even after holding its primaries on May 16 and May 18, 2026, ahead of the portal access deadline.

The delays have been blamed on internal wrangling, complaints by aggrieved aspirants and crises that rocked some parts of the states during the primaries with allegations and counter-allegations.

Sources have revealed that some camps in the party have been working underground to ensure that the consensus candidates allegedly favoured by Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa get into the list while some other camps are also in a power play to emerge victorious.

The uncertainty was further heightened by the earlier disqualification by the party of some aspirants from the House of Representatives race, especially those allegedly linked to the consensus candidates preferred by the governor.

Some of the aspirants were said to have been present at the collation centres even after they were disqualified, expecting to be declared winners.

The crisis has also led to a chaotic scenario with several aspirants in various constituencies independently laying claim to the party’s tickets with incumbent lawmakers and governor-backed candidates engaged in fierce cold battles over who actually won the primaries.