Political parties are experiencing sharply different levels of success as they work to upload candidates onto INEC’s nomination portal ahead of the July 11 deadline, with some sailing through the process and others struggling to meet it.
The BOOT Party has had the roughest experience so far. National Chairman Sonny Adenuga told Vanguard the party has faced persistent difficulty using the portal since receiving its access code last week, though he said BOOT remains committed to uploading all its candidates before the deadline and has already flagged the problem to INEC. “We are complying as usual. We will upload all our candidates before the deadline,” he said, while expressing disappointment over the technical challenges.
Labour Party had a bumpier start too, but says the issue is now behind it. National Publicity Secretary Ken Asogwa explained that the portal’s automated system initially rejected candidate records over formatting mismatches, particularly around the order in which surnames and first names appeared relative to previously submitted lists. Once the party adjusted the format, he said, the uploads went through without further trouble. “We started uploading last week. It has been seamless. The only challenge has been technical,” he said.
Several parties reported no meaningful problems at all. The Action Democratic Party’s National Chairman, Engr. Yabagi Yusuf Sani, said the party is fully compliant and on pace to meet the deadline. The Nigeria Democratic Congress said its uploads have proceeded with little friction, with National Publicity Secretary Osa Director noting that the party’s reconciliation committee is simultaneously working through outstanding disputes from its primaries. The New Nigeria Peoples Party, by contrast, appeared to have less visibility into its own progress, National Secretary Dipo Olayoku said he was not aware of how far the party had gotten since receiving its access code. APGA declined to comment altogether.
The APC, PDP and ADC, the larger parties, all described smooth sailing. A senior APC source said the party’s upload is proceeding without incident toward the July 11 deadline, while the party’s National Chairman’s office, through Special Adviser Abimbola Tooki, reiterated its commitment to a transparent and credible nomination process. That process has not been without controversy, though. The APC’s National Working Committee dropped six senatorial candidates and 19 House of Representatives candidates from its original May primary results, a revision that National Publicity Secretary Felix Morka said followed more than 700 petitions from aggrieved party members. Despite the shake-up, several prominent figures, including four sitting governors, retained their positions on the party’s final Senate list submitted to INEC.
The PDP and ADC each described themselves as being on cruise control. PDP’s Mohammed Haruna Jungudo said the party has encountered no technical, legal or administrative obstacles since the exercise began. ADC’s Bolaji Abdullahi said his party has already uploaded its presidential and vice-presidential candidates and remains on track to finish its National Assembly list, dismissing reports of irregular candidate substitutions and urging members to disregard circulating fake nomination forms. “We have had no cases of wrongful or illegal substitution of candidates’ names,” he said, adding that an upcoming Tuesday court hearing tied to the process should not concern party members.
