The Peering Advocacy and Advancement Centre in Africa (PAACA) has called on Nigerians to pay close attention to the activities of politicians and political parties as the country prepares for the 2027 general election.
In a statement on Friday, the Executive Director of PAACA, Ezenwa Nwagwu, emphasised that internal democracy within parties is crucial to the success of the electoral process.
“Nigerians underestimate the role political parties play in the outcome of secondary elections. If the primary elections are bad, the outcome will reflect in the main elections.
“90 per cent of the challenges we have in our elections are due to lack of internal democracy, imposition of candidates, absence of genuine contest, and lack of competition within parties,” Mr Nwagwu said.
He called on citizens and stakeholders to closely monitor the wave of defections across political parties and how it will impact the internal crisis within the parties.
“Stakeholders must pay keen attention to what the political parties are doing. We cannot be described as meddlesome interlopers in the affairs of people who recruit leaders for us. The leader’s selection process is a sacred assignment that the political parties are involved in.
“They are the ones who present candidates. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) does not present candidates. Sometimes they even present unqualified candidates, and the matter ends up in court.”
He called for reforms that go beyond passing new laws every election season, emphasising the need for politicians to change their attitudes towards elections and democracy.
“We may have all the good laws, but at the end of the day, it comes down to the attitude of politicians. So, as we go into 2027, the reforms are not just going to be legalistic reforms.
“We must examine how much we have shifted from our subversive attitude to the laws that already exist. Because even when you make new laws, the politicians who make the laws go back to study how to subvert them,” he added.
Mr Nwagwu faulted what he described as the over-concentration on INEC, noting that election administrators often become scapegoats for crises orchestrated by political actors.
“The challenge is that all of us are fixated on the election administrator whose job is simply to conduct elections. But politicians sometimes go behind to compromise the administrator and subvert the rules. About 60 per cent of electoral crises are orchestrated by political actors themselves,” he said.
He warned that as 2027 approaches, citizens must remain vigilant and resist attempts by politicians to dominate and divert public discourse.
“We will begin to see the heating up of the polity from February. Politicians have mastered the art of diverting attention from the real issues, and citizens must not allow them to control the narrative.”
He predicted an increase in self-promotion by politicians in 2026 and urged citizens to hold them accountable. He also advocated for reserved seats for women, diaspora voting, and early voting to expand Nigeria’s democratic space.
“We will see an increase in awards (governor of the year, politicians of the year). We will see an increase in self-promotion. As citizens, it is our duty to hold them accountable to ask, “How did you improve the lives of Nigerians, in health education and so on?” he asked.
