The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the African Democratic Congress (ADC) have taken divergent positions on the credibility of last Saturday’s bye-elections, which were conducted across 12 states and 32 local government areas by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Appearing on Arise Television on Tuesday, APC’s National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, defended the polls as largely credible, despite reports of irregularities in some areas.
“No election is universally hitch-free. Almost nowhere in the world do you have an election that you can say was 100% hitch-free. But it’s all relative. The election we had last Saturday was generally free and fair,” Morka said.
He cited incidents of violence in Kano, particularly in the Bagwa-Seleno District, where he had earlier called for cancellation but insisted that those cases were exceptions rather than the norm.
“The APC prevailed significantly across all of the districts where the elections took place. We simply mobilised, canvassed for votes, and our candidates prevailed.
“With every election, people win and people lose. Those who failed to compete effectively cannot now discredit the process. We have every right to celebrate our victory,” Morka declared.
The elections were held to fill vacant seats in the House of Representatives and state assemblies following resignations, court rulings, and the deaths of sitting lawmakers.
According to INEC, the exercise covered 6,987 polling units spread across 12 states, including Kano, Zamfara, Plateau, Ebonyi, and Cross River.
However, in a separate appearance on the programme, ADC chieftain and former director-general of the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, Ladan Salihu, strongly disagreed with Morka’s assessment, describing the exercise as deeply flawed.
“Nigerians have watched with disgust what played out in the by-elections,” Salihu said.
“Over 300 thugs were arrested in one Kano local government, 200 in another, and in Zamfara, an individual was caught with ₦25.9 million attempting to buy votes. For the first time in our electoral history, soldiers were deployed in a ward in Sakajiki to curb daylight ballot snatching.”
Salihu argued that the scale of the by-elections made them too insignificant to serve as a pointer to what might happen in the 2027 general elections, stressing that only 6,900 polling units were involved compared to more than 176,000 nationwide.
“With every empirical index, these elections cannot be a barometer for 2027. What is there to celebrate in this election? INEC has not lived up to the expectations of Nigerians. The same flaws we saw in 2023 played out again. Nothing has changed,” he said.
The ADC chieftain further explained that his party, which has been undergoing internal restructuring, was not fully on the ballot in most constituencies, as many candidates contested on personal strength rather than on the party’s organisational support.
“We expected this narrative to come out of the APC to suggest that 2027 is almost a foregone conclusion. But it is not.”
As the ruling APC insists that last weekend’s outcomes validate its political dominance, Salihu continues to question the integrity of the electoral system.
“The responsibility lies with the president to midwife a process that will make this democracy dependable and full of integrity,” Salihu added.
