A former Governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi, has accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of deliberately stalling efforts by opposition parties to build a strong coalition against the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) ahead of the 2027 general elections.
Naijaonpoint reports that Amaechi, who is also a former Minister of Transportation and now a key member of the opposition coalition under the African Democratic Congress (ADC), made the allegations on Thursday during a live appearance on Politics Today, a Channels Television programme.
Lamenting the slow pace of new political party registrations, Amaechi alleged that INEC was intentionally frustrating the emergence of alternative political platforms to favour the APC.
Amaechi said, “I head a committee with the mandate of the coalition to pursue the registration of the All Democratic Alliance (ADA). If INEC had registered ADA, we probably wouldn’t have bothered going to ADC.
“The political space is closed for the benefit of the APC. I come to say that the INEC chairman is not ashamed.”
Amaechi claimed that the delay in approving the ADA was a calculated move by INEC to weaken the opposition ahead of the 2027 elections.
He said, “In fact, what is holding the ADA for now is that we have yet to bring the address of our offices and the officers of the party that will submit in the next meeting. I don’t want to call the other parties that had gone ahead with the registration, and INEC just ignored it completely.
“Some of them, their rents have expired. So, the chairman of INEC is deliberately doing that so that there will be nobody fighting the APC. And they’re not even ashamed that after (Maurice) Iwu, they organised the worst election; I would be ashamed.”
Despite the alleged obstacles, Amaechi said the ADC and its coalition partners are determined to push back.
He said, “And with the way things are going, what ADC will do, and I said that all of us would do that, is to mobilise Nigerians to rise, to vote, and to stop these people from rigging, including the INEC, because those who constitute this rigging machine are not up to 10, in fact, two per cent of the population, the rest 98 per cent must get up and stop them, because if not, you’ll start crying again.”