New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) chieftain Buba Galadima has accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of being compromised in favour of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), warning that alleged plans to appoint a controversial retired judge as the next INEC chairman could plunge Nigeria into chaos.
Speaking in an interview on ARISE News, Galadima alleged that the government was considering nominating a recently retired Court of Appeal judge “known for notoriety” to head the electoral body.
“Come November, there are rumours all over the place that this government is nominating a just-retired Court of Appeal judge who is known for notoriety to be the chairman of INEC.
“I wish it were not true. Because if that man becomes the chairman of INEC, be assured that this government is inviting a civil war in this country,” he warned.
The opposition figure accused the current administration of having no regard for the rule of law, stressing that the electoral body itself had already been compromised.
“So you can see that this government has no respect for the rule of law. And we cannot be in a country where the government does not respect the law. The INEC chairman has already rigged the election for the APC.
“They brought somebody who is the secretary of the party that went to court for APC as acting national chairman, and he was rewarded as chairman of INEC,” he alleged.
Galadima further criticised INEC for failing to enforce its own regulations on early campaigns, saying the electoral umpire had repeatedly shown it lacked the will to call political players to order.
“In the last six months, I complained severally about INEC’s inability to call political players to order. And I came to realise, painfully too, that they are not in a position to do that because those who pay the piper dictate the tune,” he said.
He traced the trend of premature campaigning to the ruling APC, arguing that it was a deliberate strategy to exhaust opposition forces ahead of the 2027 elections.
“This issue of campaigning before being allowed by INEC was started by the government of the day. And this suggests that INEC cannot be an umpire in a political environment as we have today.
“If they don’t have the liver to even say, ‘Please don’t; we have not yet allowed politicians to start,’ then the process is already compromised,” Galadima argued.
According to him, the APC’s early start was designed to weaken rivals:
“The wisdom of the APC to start the campaign early is because they wanted to see their opponents so that they would, through time, cut them into pieces. And I saw some of my friends in the opposition just fall into the trap because they are not seasoned politicians. They are opportunists in politics.”
He said many opposition figures had already paid the price of this miscalculation, recalling how they jumped from party to party in desperation.
“If they had known, or if they were politicians, they wouldn’t have danced to the drum being beaten by the APC. Now you can see some of them started with SDP.
“I was here on this platform to warn them that no opposition politician in his right senses will start a marathon race against a sitting government. Because by the time it is time for you to say go, you are already tired and exhausted.
“And this is exactly the trap they fell into. So they were decimated in the SDP. They moved to the ADC. They are still shouting, shouting, shouting, shouting. It’s not time yet. And they will get exhausted. They will be dismembered,” he said.
Galadima stressed that appointing an individual with a tainted record to head INEC would destroy confidence in Nigeria’s democracy.
“If this man is appointed INEC chairman, then forget about elections in Nigeria. Because there would be no elections in this country, and it would create chaos,” he declared.
Calling for vigilance among Nigerians, he said, “We cannot allow somebody that has a record of notoriety to be imposed on us as INEC chairman.”
