Nigeria’s Supreme Court has restored four provisions of the Electoral Act 2026 that a lower appellate court had struck down months earlier, settling — at least on constitutional grounds — a dispute over how political parties manage membership registers and select candidates ahead of 2027.
The judgment, delivered Thursday by a seven-member panel led by Justice Adamu Jauro, upheld the appeal filed by the Independent National Electoral Commission after the Court of Appeal voided parts of the Act back in July.
How the Case Got Here
The dispute traces back to the Zenith Labour Party, which challenged the constitutionality of Sections 77(5), 77(6), 77(7), and 84(2) of the Electoral Act 2026 at the Federal High Court in Abuja. The party argued the provisions were inconsistent with the 1999 Constitution. The Federal High Court disagreed and ruled against ZLP.
ZLP then took the fight to the Court of Appeal, which — in a July 16, 2026 judgment — sided with the party on part of its case, voiding the provisions dealing with party primaries and membership registers. That outcome is what pushed INEC to escalate the matter to the Supreme Court.
The apex court reinstated the Federal High Court’s original ruling entirely, effectively wiping out the Court of Appeal’s decision. ZLP was also ordered to pay ₦2 million in costs. In the same sitting, the Supreme Court separately dismissed similar appeals brought by the Social Democratic Party and the Youth Party against INEC, reinforcing the same legal position across multiple cases at once.
What the Provisions Actually Require
The four sections at the center of the case aren’t abstract — they set real, practical rules parties will have to follow heading into 2027:
Section 77(5) provides that only persons whose names appear on a party’s membership register submitted to INEC at least 21 days before a primary, congress or convention are eligible to vote or be voted for at the exercise.
Section 77(6) requires parties to actually use that submitted register for their internal elections — not a separate, unverified list.
Section 77(7) carries the sharpest consequence of the four: a party that fails to submit its membership register within that 21-day window is barred from fielding a candidate for the election in question altogether.
Section 84(2) mandates that parties nominate candidates through either direct primaries or consensus.
Arguing for INEC, Alex Izinyon (SAN) told the court these rules exist to prevent parties from imposing candidates on their members, curb fraud during the primary process, and ensure that only verified, registered members have a say in who gets nominated. The Supreme Court agreed, holding that the four provisions are not inconsistent with the 1999 Constitution.
What This Ruling Does — and Doesn’t — Settle
With Sections 77(5), 77(6), 77(7) and 84(2) now restored, the Supreme Court has settled the constitutional challenge brought against those provisions in this case. However, questions about how the provisions apply to individual candidates and previously conducted primaries may still have to be determined on their specific facts.
Legal commentators have been quick to note the ruling’s limits. Speaking to Sunday PUNCH, Nigerian Bar Association (Ikirun Branch) chairman Abdulkareem Azeez said the judgment did not automatically invalidate the candidacies of politicians who had defected to new parties, noting that the Supreme Court affirmed the constitutional validity of the four provisions without making factual findings on any individual candidate’s membership status, primary timeline, or defection history. He pointed to ongoing questions around candidates like Muhammad Pantami and Adamu as examples where the ruling’s general pronouncement won’t, by itself, resolve case-specific disputes.
In short: the ruling confirms the four provisions are constitutionally valid. It does not, by itself, mean every primary or nomination conducted while the provisions were voided is automatically invalid — those questions will likely still need to be argued case by case.
