APC, PDP beat deadline, submit electronic voter register to INEC
Political parties in the country have commenced the process of submitting an electronic register of their members to the Independent National Electoral Commission in line with the timetable and schedule
Political parties in the country have commenced the process of submitting an electronic register of their members to the Independent National Electoral Commission in line with the timetable and schedule of activities released by the commission ahead of the 2027 general elections.
The Commission had fixed May 10, 2026 as the deadline for the submission of the register of members by parties, an extension from the initial April 21, 2026.
The Nation gathered that both the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Nyelsom Wike backed National Working Committee of the People's Democratic Party (PDP) has submitted an electronic copy of their register to the Commission.
The source within the PDP told The Nation that the electronic copy of the register containing about 418,087 members across the country was submitted to the commission on Tuesday April 21, 2026.
The source said, “This represents the e-registration figures captured as at the date of submission”.
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Section 77 of the 2026 Electoral Act requires political parties to maintain a digital register of its members, and submit same to INEC 21 days before the party primaries, adding that any member whose name is not on the register as at the time it is submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will not be eligible to contest any the 2027 general election.
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Section 77(2) states that “A party shall maintain a digital register of its members containing the name, sex, date of birth, address, State, Local Government, ward, polling unit, National Identification
Number and photograph in both hard and soft copies.
(3) Upon registration, a membership card shall be issued to the member.
(4) Each political party shall make such register available to the Commission not later than 21 days before the date fixed
for the party primaries, congresses or conventions.
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(5) Only members whose names are contained in the register shall be eligible to vote and be voted for in party primaries,
congresses and conventions.
(6) A political party shall not use any other register for party primaries, congresses and conventions except the register
submitted to the Commission.
(7) A party that fails to submit the membership register within the stipulated time shall not be eligible to field a
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candidate for that election.
Although the Labour Party has scheduled its National Convention and Presidential primaries for April 28, 2026, it is not clear when they submitted their electronic register to the commission and the number of members contained in it.
But the PDP which earlier scheduled its primaries to commence on the 17th of May with the Presidential primary has rescheduled all the primaries with the House of Representatives primaries coming first.
The Presidential primaries will now come up on the 26th of May, Governorship (May 24), Senate (May 20), House of Representatives (May 17) and State Houses of Assembly (May 22).
