As the opposition political parties engage in the singsong to dislodge President Bola Ahmed Tinubu from the Aso Rock Presidential Villa come 2027, without a clear-cut strategy to achieve same, the question on the lips of the electorate remains, “how can the opposition prevent the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from repeating the charade of 2023, since the umpire is seen as a willing tool in the hands of the presidency and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC)?”
By Udoka Ekeleme, Abuja
“Once the INEC (the Independent National Electoral Commission) announces the presidential election of 2027 in favour of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the APC (the All Progressives Congress), the rest of the events that would follow will fizzle out into history, just as they happened in 2023”, a political analyst who craved anonymity whispered to this medium. This analyst added that it was obvious despite rhetorics to the contrary, that President Tinubu had lost the popularity and credibility to win the 2027 presidential poll due to his economic policies that are impoverishing the larger population while the ruling class and political elite swim in visible opulence.
He said in the event INEC is allowed to pronounce the result of the coming presidential election in a manner as it did in the last general election, the courts would be teleguided into stamping the result. The source which is knowledgeable in the internal workings of the INEC warned that the Saturday, August 17 by-elections in 12 states of the Federation was a harbinger to the 2027 general election.
During the controversial August 2025 by-elections, all manners of election rigging were allegedly on display in the full glare of the electoral umpire and security agencies, including vote buying and ballot box stuffing among others. In the end, the INEC would not probe the allegations that marred the by-election, but hastily announced results in which the ruling APC won 12 of the 16 legislative seats contested, leaving the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) and the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) to scramble for the rest four seats. While the opposition parties kicked, President Tinubu saw no wrong in the poor execution of the by-election, but quickly commended INEC and said the victory of APC signaled the confidence the electorate reposed in the ruling party.
The President of the Eastern Union (EU), a local pressure group, Hon. Charles C. Anike after his group’s assessment of the last by-elections in the country, called on the opposition parties and the Northern regions to stand up to resist any plan to manipulate the 2027 presidential election by the Tinubu government, APC and the INEC. He warned categorically that should the incumbent President Tinubu be allowed to rig himself the second time in 2027, the country especially the Northern regions would be in for another four years of difficult times.
In a recent interview Anike also warned, “If Tinubu is allowed to rig himself into power again in 2027, the North will know what it means to be marginalized”.
Aside the just concluded by-elections which were allegedly flawed by INEC in favour of the APC, Hon. Anike’s warning also stemmed from the fact that some notable national leaders who belonged to the APC had begun to allege and to give empirical evidence of how the INEC rigged the 2023 presidential election which President Tinubu emerged winner after the umpire had inexplicably announced its result dead in the night.
To fire the first salvo was a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir Lawal, who had declared, last year, that he was pretty sure that Peter Obi the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) won the 2023 presidential election. His submission which he said followed numerous evidence available to him had rattled the presidency which allegedly approached him with a plea to seal his lips. This year, a former governor of Kaduna State and former member of the APC who played active role in the election of Tinubu in 2023, Nasir el’Rufai, had also claimed that he was sure Obi defeated Tinubu at the last presidential election but was rigged out by the INEC. A former governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi who contested the APC presidential primary election with Tinubu in 2022 and lost, also a member of the ruling party till recently, accused the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Nyesom Wike, of having rigged the presidential election in their state in favour of Tinubu.
While the two major opposing candidates to Tinubu in the 2027 presidential election, Atiku Abubakar and Obi continue to plot their strategies to defeat the incumbent President, they seem to have failed to factor in how they can resist rigging which many analysts have insisted would remain Tinubu’s strongest fall back in 2027. In this regard, many electorate have advised the duo of Atiku and Obi, and their supporters, to focus more on the reformation of the electoral process to accommodate electronic transmission of results real time from the polling units to the INEC’s Result Viewing Portal commonly referred to as the IReV platform.
Many have also called on the opposition to strictly reject any INEC guideline that will deploy manual collation of election results because it will signal the beginning of rigging since the electoral umpire is ostensibly regarded by the electorate not to be sincere, trustworthy or impartial. Another burning issue raised by observers is how the opposition is going to checkmate the activities of what they termed the “Egbetokun’s menacing police” during the 2027 presidential election.
When President Tinubu, in cahoots with the National Assembly, curiously extended the tenure of Kayode Egbetokun as the Inspector General of Police (IGP) after the latter had attained the mandatory retirement age, many opinion leaders had accused the government of plotting to use the police to rig the 2027 presidential election. They alleged that there was no justifiable reason behind the hasty amendment of the Police Act to extend Egbetokun’s tenure if not to use him to deploy the Force to help INEC to once again foist Tinubu on Nigeria as President the second time.
The big poser, before anyone between Atiku and Obi would emerge the flag bearer of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), or in the event both decide to run a joint ticket, is how their party can contend with Egbetokun’s menacing police which may deploy brutality, terror, aiding and abetting ballot box snatching and stuffing, as well as vote buying and manipulation of election results sheets by INEC officials.
A member of the Obidient Movement resident in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) who identified himself as Badmus Ocheme, called on the Nigerian electorate to ensure that the INEC must be prevented from announcing the presidential election of 2027 in the dead of the night when collation has not been concluded. Ocheme said if such is allowed to happen, no amount of protest from the opposition can persuade the already compromised justices of the Appeal Court and Supreme Court to change the situation.
Ocheme told this medium that even if Tinubu had failed to secure the lawful 25 percent votes in the 2/3 states of the Federation and was declared winner by the INEC in 2023, the two highest courts in the land which, according to him, shamelessly tampered with the critical status of Abuja in deciding presidential election, would still have tampered that aspect of the jaundiced 1999 Constitution in order to award winner of the 2023 presidential election to Tinubu.
Also, Ocheme added, “This is because those in the know of the manipulation of the 2023 presidential election have been confessing that Tinubu lost to Obi. What is unfortunate is that the opposition parties have failed to focus on how to hold the INEC to conduct credible election, especially as it appears that a Yoruba Chairman may soon be appointed to take over from Yakubu”.
