from EMEKA OKONKWO in Abuja, Nigeria
Nigeria Bureau
ABUJA, (CAJ News) – AS Nigeria officially kicks off the 150-day campaign period for the 2027 general elections, the roadmap towards a peaceful transition in 2027 hangs in a delicate balance.
The public campaign and rally period opened on Wednesday, preceded by the first National Peace Accord, which is a commitment by participants to holding peaceful general elections on January 16, as well as governorship and legislative polls on February 6.
While the National Peace Committee (NPC) successfully secured signatures from prominent frontline candidates – including Peter Obi, Omoyele Sowore and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) – the conspicuous absence of the country’s main opposition highlights deep-seated systemic friction.
Paralysed by a bitter, unresolved two-faction leadership war, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) completely sat out the ceremony, leaving a critical vacuum in the national consensus.
This stark contrast between multi-party commitment and opposition fragmentation has raised questions about whether the world’s largest Black nation can secure a peaceful electoral cycle when its second-largest political party refuses to commit to a harmonious exercise.
The accord signed in Abuja establishes a critical baseline for the 2027 electoral cycle, forecast to be the most competitive poll in recent times.
General Abdulsalami Abubakar, the last military head of state (1998-99), heads the NPC. Catholic Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah serves as its convener.
Prominently among those who signed are President Bola Tinubu’s representative, George Akume, who is Secretary to the Government of the Federation, African Action Congress (AAC) candidate Sowore, Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate Adewole Adebayo and Obi of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC).
Prof. Oserheimen Osunbor represented the African Democratic Party (ADP), which has chosen six-time unsuccessful contestant and former president, Atiku Abubakar, as its presidential candidate.
They have pledged to reject hate speech and ethnic mobilisation, and their signatures provide a moral yardstick civil society can use to hold politicians accountable in a country with a history of violent polls.
Prof. Joash Amupitan, the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), urged political parties and candidates to uphold the commitments contained in the accord.
“Before the first campaign flag is unfurled, before the first rally is staged and before political rhetoric fills our public space, it is necessary that those who seek to lead this nation first gather to establish the ethical boundaries of their contest,” he said.
Amupitan warned that the signing of the accord would be futile if signatories failed to ensure that supporters and campaign structures respected its provisions.
“It is not the signatures written on this Accord that preserve democracy; it is the character of the leaders who hold the pen,” he said.
Obi, who came third after Tinubu and Abubakar in a 2023 contest whose outcome the opposition rejected as flawed, said the signing of the accord was a reinforcement of his continued commitment to insisting that candidates must conduct themselves in a way that reflected the office they aspired to.
“Leaders must eschew all forms of violent rhetoric and rein in their followers to do the same,” he said.
“The next elections must be strictly based on the issues that matter to Nigerians: unity, insecurity, pulling people out of poverty, reducing the number of out-of-school children, and restoring hope to the long-suffering people of our country.”
The PDP, which ushered in democratic rule in 1999 but lost in 2015, was absent from the signing because the internal fracture made a unified signature impossible.
Two factions are involved in a legal tussle over the right to represent the party.
It is torn between a group supporting Abdulrahman Mohammed and enjoying the support of Nyesom Wike, who, despite being an opposition figure, is Tinubu’s Minister of the Federal Capital Territory. That faction is dismissed as an appendage of the ruling party.
Another faction is associated with governors and has endorsed ex-president Goodluck Jonathan as its candidate. Jonathan lost to Muhammadu Buhari in 2015, and the PDP has since been factionalised.
“The absence of the PDP (from the accord) is not just a tactical boycott against state agencies. It is the direct consequence of a broken party structure unable to speak with a single voice,” analyst Auta Ibrahim told CAJ News in Abuja.
He said, “For an election cycle, the refusal or failure of a major institutional party to sign creates ripple effects across Nigeria’s political landscape.”
On the peace accord overall, he said, “Peace on election day will not be dictated by a document signed in a ballroom, but by whether the Nigeria Police Force and INEC act with absolute, transparent impartiality on the ground.”
A second National Peace Accord is expected closer to the election date for parties to accept the final certified election results or seek redress strictly through the constitutional court system.
Nigerian political parties and their candidates have frequently flouted or breached the terms of these accords during past election cycles.
This includes the 2023 edition, characterised by inter-party clashes, hate speech and ballot snatching.
Nigeria’s election is the largest democratic exercise in any Black nation, with over 93.4 million registered voters as of the last election.
This is out of an estimated population of 242.8 million.
– CAJ News