Appeal Court Voids Electoral Act Provision Restricting Parties to Direct Primaries or Consensus, Strikes Down Other Key Sections

Pat Stevens/

The Court of Appeal in Abuja has struck down a key provision of the Electoral Act that limited political parties to direct primaries or consensus in selecting their candidates.

In the same judgment delivered on Thursday, the appellate court also invalidated three provisions governing political party membership registers, holding that they amounted to unconstitutional interference with the internal affairs of political parties.

A three-member panel led by Justice Balkisu Aliyu unanimously allowed an appeal filed by the Zenith Party and set aside an earlier judgment of the Federal High Court, which had dismissed the suit.

Delivering the lead judgment, Justice Eberechi Nyesom-Wike declared Sections 77(5), 77(6), 77(7) and 84(2) of the Electoral Act 2026 unconstitutional, ruling that the National Assembly exceeded its constitutional powers by imposing restrictions on political parties that conflict with rights guaranteed under the 1999 Constitution.

The court held that Section 84(2), which restricted political parties to direct primaries or consensus as methods of nominating candidates, amounted to legislative interference in matters that the Constitution reserves for political parties themselves.

According to the court, Sections 221 and 222 of the Constitution recognise political parties as the bodies responsible for sponsoring candidates and managing their internal affairs. Consequently, Parliament cannot enact legislation that deprives parties of the discretion to determine how they select candidates in accordance with their constitutions.

The ruling is expected to attract particular attention because it comes shortly after political parties concluded their primaries for forthcoming elections, a process that generated widespread controversy over the methods adopted by several parties in producing candidates.

Beyond candidate nomination, the court also dismantled key provisions regulating political party membership registers.

It nullified Section 77(5), which restricted participation in party primaries, congresses and conventions to members whose names appeared in the membership register previously submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Section 77(6), which prohibited political parties from using any membership register other than the one already submitted to INEC, was also struck down. The court held that the provision conferred excessive authority on the electoral commission over the internal administration of political parties.

The appellate court equally invalidated Section 77(7), which barred political parties from fielding candidates if they failed to submit their membership registers within the prescribed period, holding that such a sanction unlawfully deprived parties of their constitutional right to sponsor candidates for elective offices.

The appeal arose from a judgment delivered by Justice Mohammed Umar of the Federal High Court on May 5, 2026, which dismissed the Zenith Party’s challenge to the constitutionality of the disputed provisions.

The Zenith Party had argued that the Electoral Act unlawfully curtailed the constitutional powers of political parties to determine their membership, regulate their internal affairs and nominate candidates for elections.

While striking down the four subsections, the Court of Appeal stressed that it had not invalidated the entirety of Sections 77 and 84 of the Electoral Act.

The court clarified that provisions requiring political parties to maintain membership registers and make them available to INEC remain valid. Only the specific subsections found to be inconsistent with the Constitution were declared null and void.

The judgment is likely to influence future electoral reforms and may also shape legal arguments in disputes arising from party primaries, reinforcing the constitutional principle that political parties retain broad autonomy over their internal affairs, subject to the limits imposed by the Constitution.