By Our Correspondent <\/p>\n
As political parties are about to round up their primaries in compliance with the Independent National Electoral Commission’s timetable for 2027 election,a Federal High Court in Abuja has nullified key aspects of the timetable and schedule of activities released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the 2027 general elections, ruling that the electoral body acted beyond its powers by shortening timelines expressly provided under the Electoral Act, 2026.<\/p>\n
In a judgment delivered on Wednesday, Justice M. G. Umar held that INEC could not lawfully abridge statutory timelines relating to party primaries, submission of candidates\u2019 particulars, withdrawal and replacement of candidates, publication of final candidates\u2019 lists, and campaign periods.<\/p>\n
The ruling followed a suit filed by the Youth Party challenging portions of INEC\u2019s revised election timetable for the 2027 polls.<\/p>\n
A Certified True Copy of the judgment, obtained by our correspondent on Thursday, showed that the court declared several deadlines fixed by the commission inconsistent with provisions of the Electoral Act, 2026.<\/p>\n
The suit, marked FHC\/ABJ\/CS\/517\/2026, arose after INEC released a revised timetable directing political parties to conduct primaries within a compressed period ahead of the presidential, National Assembly, governorship and state assembly elections scheduled for February and March 2027.<\/p>\n
The commission had also fixed deadlines for submission of candidates\u2019 particulars, replacement of candidates, publication of final lists and termination of campaigns earlier than the timelines prescribed by law.<\/p>\n
However, Justice Umar ruled that while INEC possesses powers to monitor party primaries and receive notices from political parties, it lacks the authority to alter or reduce timelines expressly stipulated in the Electoral Act.<\/p>\n
The court specifically held that Section 29(1) of the Electoral Act mandates political parties to submit particulars of candidates not later than 120 days before an election, stressing that INEC could not validly shorten that period through administrative guidelines or election timetables.<\/p>\n
The judge further ruled that Section 31 of the Act permits political parties to withdraw and replace candidates up to 90 days before an election, declaring unlawful any attempt by the commission to impose earlier deadlines.<\/p>\n
Justice Umar also faulted INEC\u2019s decision to publish final lists of candidates earlier than the statutory minimum period of 60 days before elections.<\/p>\n
On campaign activities, the court ruled that the commission could not direct political parties to end campaigns two days before elections since the Electoral Act already provides the legal framework governing campaign periods.<\/p>\n
The court also clarified that timelines fixed by INEC for submission of membership registers for party primaries would not apply where political parties are conducting fresh primaries to replace candidates who voluntarily withdrew from races.<\/p>\n
Consequently, the judge set aside the affected portions of INEC\u2019s revised timetable and schedule of activities for the 2027 general elections, declaring that the disputed timelines were \u201cinconsistent with the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Youth Party had argued before the court that INEC unlawfully sought to curtail statutory rights granted to political parties under the Electoral Act through the revised timetable.<\/p>\n
Counsel to the plaintiff, J. O. Olotu, urged the court to void the disputed provisions, while counsel to INEC, Sarafa Yusuf, asked the court to dismiss the suit.<\/p>\n
The judgment is expected to compel INEC to review aspects of the 2027 election timetable and align them with the provisions of the Electoral Act ahead of preparations for the next general elections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Our Correspondent As political parties are about to round up their primaries in compliance with the Independent National Electoral Commission’s timetable for 2027 election,a Federal High Court in Abuja has nullified key aspects of the timetable and schedule of activities released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the 2027 general elections, ruling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13470,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13908"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13909,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13908\/revisions\/13909"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}