2027 Elections: Senior Lawyer Challenges INEC Over Its Latest Decision

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Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Oba Maduabuchi, has argued that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) lacks the constitutional authority to disqualify candidates seeking elective offices.

Maduabuchi made the assertion following the publication of INEC’s final list of candidates on Friday, which reportedly excluded several aspirants contesting various positions in the 2027 general elections.

According to the legal practitioner, the powers and responsibilities of an institution such as INEC must be assessed in line with the provisions of the Electoral Act and the Nigerian Constitution.

He maintained that neither of the two legal instruments authorises the electoral commission to disqualify candidates or independently decide who is eligible to participate in an election.

He told Arise TV: “The police, Army and INEC are statutory creations. They are created by law. That law defines the ambit of the powers exercisable by those bodies. So, to know what a particular body has the capacity to do, you go back to its establishing statute. For INEC, these are the Electoral Act and the Nigerian Constitution.

“These are the two documents you must look at. There is no provision in the 1999 Nigerian Constitution authorising INEC to disqualify anybody. There is none.

“There is also no provision in the Electoral Act that gives INEC the power to decide whether somebody is qualified to contest an election. There is no such provision.

“So, INEC is simply…how do I describe it? I have to be careful with the words I use. But I think they are ill-advised, to say the least.”

Maduabuchi consequently suggested that INEC had received poor legal advice regarding the matter.

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