Nigeria's Democracy Is Being Redesigned in the Image of the Ruling Party
Updated on : Sunday, 24 May, 2026
Released on: Friday, 22 May, 2026
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Whilst the recent FCT High Court ruling on INEC's 2027 Guidelines may appear commendable on the surface, it ultimately reinforces a fundamental democratic principle: no government institution, including INEC, has the authority to issue guidelines or policies that override the supremacy of the Constitution and the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
That is the real significance of the FCT High Court ruling nullifying aspects of the INEC guideline on party membership submission timelines. The Constitution and Electoral Act remain supreme, not administrative circulars or regulatory improvisations by unelected INEC officials.
However, beyond the legal celebration lies a deeper political irony.
If this suit was not quietly encouraged or politically convenient for the ruling party itself, then the judgement may have unintentionally done the ruling party a favour by saving it from a future implosion caused by the dangerous culture of handpicked candidates disguised as "consensus."
One must ask: why 21 days? Why not 21 hours, 21 weeks, or 21 months before a member can join a political party and contest a primary? The arbitrary nature of such restrictions exposed the contradictions embedded in the 2026 Electoral Act — it is a common knowledge in the political cycle that it is a law midwifed by the ruling party’s establishment itself and largely shielded from meaningful public scrutiny before passage.
Today, those contradictions are beginning to reveal themselves.
The same law that attempted to centralise and control party processes is now exposing the internal weaknesses of the ruling party. With consensus arrangements increasingly challenged, APC may now be forced into costly nationwide direct primaries for current and future presidential contests — exercises that would consume enormous financial and logistical resources, resources that Nigerians fear could once again be indirectly tied to the privileges of incumbency and state power.
But beyond the cost lies the greater danger.
What happens when consensus can no longer conceal internal rebellion?
What happens when presidential influence weakens and rival factions begin openly contesting for survival?
What happens when party members rejected through "Jagaban's Elite Arrangements" decide they no longer wish to remain silent?
The answer is obvious: the cracks will widen.
Pre-2026 Electoral Act, a few disgruntled party members who felt unfairly treated during primaries would simply seek nomination under another political platform. While such defections were often criticised as opportunistic and lacking ideological consistency, those politicians at least believed they were exercising their constitutional right to freedom of association.
The APC may eventually face the full consequences of building a political structure held together more by access to power than by ideological unity or internal democracy. A party cannot indefinitely suppress internal contradictions through imposed consensus and expect long-term stability.
This is precisely what happens when critical national legislation like the 2026 Electoral Act is hurried through the system without broad public participation, without sufficient legislative transparency, and, as many Nigerians believe, without even proper scrutiny by several lawmakers expected to debate its long-term implications.
Nigeria today is therefore not merely facing a crisis of governance. We are witnessing the gradual privatisation of democracy itself.
What Nigeria currently operates is not democracy in substance; it is democracy in costume.
Public institutions increasingly appear vulnerable to political influence. Electoral frameworks are shaped to favour entrenched interests. The ruling political class continues to enjoy enormous structural advantages while opposition parties are left to struggle for survival under unequal conditions.
At that point, democracy ceases to be a fair national process and becomes an auction dominated by the highest political bidders.
That is privatised democracy taken to another level — a system where government no longer truly belongs to the people, but to those who temporarily control the machinery of the state.
If INEC chooses not to appeal this judgement and proceeds instead to issue revised guidelines that make it easier for disgruntled APC members to migrate to other political parties ahead of primaries, then the ruling may have effectively accelerated the timeline for the ruling party's future implosion.
Yours sincerely,
Sonny Adenuga
National Chairman
Because Of Our Tomorrow (BOOT) Party
@SonnyAdenuga
Signed
BOOT Party! @TheBOOTParty
Because Of Our Tomorrow
The BOOT Party is a cooperative-like political leadership system.
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