The All Progressives Congress (APC), has said the decision by INEC to extend the deadline for the submission of names of its candidates for the 2027 Presidential and National Assembly elections showed the opposition parties were not prepared for the 2027 elections
Its National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, in a statement announced that the ruling party successfully met the deadline and satisfied the requirement despite the large number of party candidates contesting for the various elective offices.
The party, it was gathered, uploaded the credentials of all 471 of its flagbearers for the 2027 presidential and National Assembly elections to INEC Candidate Nomination Portal (ICNP).
Morka noted: “At the request of opposition political parties that had failed to meet the July 11 deadline, INEC granted an extension of the deadline to July 14, 2026
“While INEC acted within its statutory powers and administrative discretion in extending the deadline for opposition parties to upload names of their candidates, it is noteworthy that the extension was necessitated by the stark failure of opposition parties to manage their internal processes to comply with INEC’s submission deadline despite having fewer candidates to manage compared to the APC.
“This development provides yet another clear indication of the opposition’s chronic inherent weakness and raises legitimate questions about their operational capacity.
“Political parties that cannot efficiently conclude their own internal nomination processes cannot possibly be trusted by Nigerians to possess the competence, discipline, or readiness to govern our great nation or its subnational governments.”
Morka added that it is ironical that the same opposition parties have repeatedly peddled false, malicious and unfounded tales that the APC controls and dictates INEC’s decisions.
“Yet, as they failed to meet the submission deadline, they shamelessly turned to the same INEC for respite, and were granted an extension,” he noted.
