2027: INEC rejects Jonathan’s candidacy as Turaki’s PDP insists on manual submission

By Omeiza Ajayi & Luminous Jannamike

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has rejected former President Goodluck Jonathan’s presidential nomination submitted by the Kabiru Turaki-led faction of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

Turaki’s camp had insisted earlier on Friday that it had manually delivered Jonathan’s candidacy and the names of its other 2027 general election candidates to the commission, deepening the party’s raging leadership crisis.

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INEC’s Director of Voter Education and Publicity, Victoria Eta-Messi, told Saturday Vanguard that the commission does not accept nominations outside its designated electronic channel.

“Submission is only done on a dedicated portal as stipulated by our regulations and guidelines please,” she said.

But the Turaki camp’s National Publicity Secretary, Comrade Ini Ememobong, told journalists the committee opted for manual submission after INEC declined to release access codes needed for electronic filing, arguing the codes were merely an administrative convenience rather than a legal requirement.

“Notwithstanding INEC’s refusal to provide us with the necessary access codes… we have successfully submitted, manually and in full compliance with the Electoral Act 2026, the list of candidates sponsored by the authentic Peoples Democratic Party,” Ememobong said.

He said the submission, covering Jonathan’s presidential nomination alongside all governorship, National Assembly and state assembly candidates fielded by the committee, had been acknowledged by INEC despite the standoff over recognition.

Ememobong cautioned the commission against publishing any list at variance with what his committee submitted, vowing to explore every available legal option to protect the party’s structure. 

He said; “hould the Commission publish names other than those lawfully submitted by us… we are exhausting every constitutional, legal and democratic avenue to ensure that our Party is not hijacked or annexed to the ruling party”.

Tracing the roots of the crisis, he said the party’s Board of Trustees BoT and a requisitioned National Executive Committee NEC meeting constituted the Interim National Working Committee NWC after a Supreme Court judgment left the PDP without a legally recognised national leadership.

According to him, INEC’s refusal to acknowledge the interim leadership, despite formal notification, pushed the party to seek judicial intervention.

He also faulted a subsequent Federal High Court judgment on the matter, describing it as an attempt to relitigate settled questions of law. “The judgment… reads more like an appeal on the judgment of the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal. It is clearly inconsistent with the extant decisions of the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal that form the foundation of our case,” he said, disclosing that the party had appealed the judgment and would separately challenge alleged discrepancies between the ruling delivered in court and its Certified True Copy CTC.

Ememobong accused INEC of abandoning its constitutional neutrality in handling the dispute. “The Commission’s actions have regrettably reinforced the growing public perception that it is no longer acting with the impartiality expected of the nation’s electoral umpire,” he said.

He alleged that the commission withheld material facts during court proceedings involving the party and disregarded congresses it had monitored.

Alleging that the PDP’s troubles were part of a wider design to cripple opposition parties and entrench one-party dominance in the country, he said; “We were the pioneer target for opposition dismantling and capture… but it has now spread to almost all the opposition parties”.

Ememobong called on Nigerians to rise in defence of multi-party democracy, cautioning that unchecked electoral authoritarianism would stall the country’s democratic consolidation, while expressing confidence that his committee would ultimately prevail.

“We were the pioneer target for opposition dismantling and capture… but it has now spread to almost all the opposition parties,” he said, warning that the trend threatened the survival of genuine political competition in the country.

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