2027 Race: Opposition Parties Battle Legal Challenges Amid Campaign Plans

With less than six months to the 2027 general elections in Nigeria, the country’s major opposition parties are getting mired in leadership battles and legal disputes while the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) builds its structures in preparation to confront a divided and weakened opposition.

The story is the same from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), once the country’s leading opposition platform, to the African Democratic Congress (ADC), the Labour Party (LP) and the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC).

Rival conventions, parallel leaderships, duplicated candidates and an endless stream of lawsuits before the courts hold sway. The result is a growing sense of uncertainty for thousands of candidates already cleared to contest next year’s polls, many of them unsure whether the platforms on which they hope to run will survive the litigation that has consumed their parties.

The crisis has resulted in two parallel primaries and therefore there are two presidential candidates in the PDP. The National Working Committee headed by Abdulraman Mohammed, and supported by the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, has picked former Cross River senator Sandy Onor as the party’s presidential flag bearer for 2027.

But the Interim National Working Committee led by Tanimu Turaki, claims it has picked former President Goodluck Jonathan as the authentic PDP candidate. Last Wednesday, the two camps separately issued certificates of return to their gubernatorial and National Assembly candidates in separate ceremonies, underscoring how entrenched the division has become.

The Mohammed led faction is currently in the driving seat as its leadership is recognized by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). However, the Turaki camp has approached a court, through its Board of Trustees, seeking an order, compelling INEC to recognise it instead. It is one of at least two other suits on the PDP crisis currently before different courts.

Wike told a recent meeting of the National Executive Committee at the party’s secretariat in Wadata Plaza, Abuja, that the battle for the soul of the PDP had already been won and lost and insisted the worst was over.

He said the access code to be issued by INEC to political parties for the 2027 process was expected by June 26 and his camp had no cause for fear.

But the spokesman for the Turaki led faction, Ini Ememobong, played down the importance of the access code saying what really counts is whose candidates are on the ballot. He likened the contest to a marathon and not a sprint, pointing out that his camp fielded a candidate in Ekiti without the benefit of INEC’s portal access.

The ADC, which has put itself forward as a coalition platform for the 2027 contest, is no better off. At the moment, the party is divided into three factions; one faction is led by the former Senate President, David Mark, who is seen as the mainstream bloc and currently recognized by the INEC; one faction is led by Kingsley Ogga and the other faction is led by the former deputy national chairman, Nafiu Bala.

One of the notable allies of the Mark camp is former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.

The national publicity secretary of the ADC, Bolaji Abdullahi, confirmed that the party has three cases in court, including a suit by Bala challenging Mark’s leadership, a suit on the party’s deregistration and another filed by aggrieved state chairmen.

But Abdullahi dismissed the disruption, saying the party had survived legal attacks since its inception and would not be derailed.

Ogga, for his part, said his camp’s case was about making the party live up to its own constitution, not serving any personal interest.

It is a view echoed by Ememobong of the PDP, who alleged that the wave of litigation rocking opposition parties had been deliberately orchestrated by the APC led federal government to keep its rivals in disarray.
He pointed to previous comments made by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in which he expressed contentment at the opposition being split, as proof of a state-planned approach.

Abdullahi echoed the charge, describing the scale of legal harassment facing opposition parties as unprecedented in Nigeria’s political history and warning it does not augur well for the country’s democracy.

The LP provides perhaps the starkest example of disarray in the opposition. While a string of court rulings have, for now, favoured the faction led by Nenadi Usman, the rival camp loyal to former national chairman, Julius Abure, insist that the battle is far from over and are awaiting a final verdict from the Supreme Court.

The standoff has resulted in parallel structures, separate congresses and conventions, and, astonishingly, two presidential candidates for one party.

The Usman led faction has settled for Dr Chibuzo Okereke, a governance expert and public policy scholar at Miva Open University, Abuja, presenting him through a consensus process as a reform minded candidate with a background in institutional development and accountability.

The Abure-led faction, for its part, has nominated its immediate past National Youth Leader, Prince Kennedy Ahanotu, as a fresh and youthful face that can mobilise young Nigerians and has insisted that his emergence was the outcome of valid congresses held under its leadership.

The leadership question can only be decided by the Supreme Court finally, said Dr Ayo Olorunfemi, Deputy National Chairman, Abure faction, and added that even an adverse ruling cannot automatically give victory to the candidates of the Usman camp.

But Elder Yusuf Solomon Danbaki, who was a former chairman of the Labour Party, Kaduna State, and now a senatorial candidate for Kaduna Central under the Usman faction, said the battle was already over and described Abure’s parallel primaries as a mere distraction.

Both sides claim legitimacy and have put forward rival presidential candidates, leaving the LP weakened and divided as it heads into 2027 against a resurgent APC.

Adding to the opposition’s woes was the unfolding crisis around the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), a party that only months ago appeared to be emerging as a fresh rallying point for disaffected opposition figures.

The trouble started with a December 2025 judgment, when the Federal High Court ordered INEC to register the NDC after the party challenged the commission’s earlier refusal to recognise it.

But the same court overturned that judgment in a fresh ruling on 26 June, 2026, following an application by the unregistered Peace Movement Party (PMP), which claims to have applied for registration using the same “Victory” symbol as far back as 2015.

The NDC insisted the latest ruling did not order its deregistration and said it is still a lawfully registered party pending its appeal.

The ruling has sent shockwaves among its members and comes at a crucial moment as INEC begins uploading candidates for the 2027 elections.

The verdict has thrown up real uncertainty about the party’s standing, legal analysts say, and could even raise questions about the validity of its nominations if the litigation drags on, though the NDC dismisses such concerns, insisting its primaries followed the electoral act and INEC’s guidelines to the letter.

Outside the courtroom, disquiet is seeping into the party’s rank and file. Sunday Sun learnt that some aspirants who paid hefty sums for nomination forms are worried that the legal battle could jeopardise their ambitions despite their financial and political commitment, just as aggrieved unsuccessful aspirants fuelled the murmurs of discontent in the party.

The leadership of the NDC has sought to calm frayed nerves, saying the legal challenge is politically motivated and the court of appeal will overturn the ruling.

The national chairman, Cleopas Zuwoghe, said the Federal High Court is not the last judicial authority in the land. He said the party still has faith in the Nigerian judiciary, adding that it would follow the appellate process and it is sure that justice will be done.

It seems the same pattern is playing out across the PDP, ADC, LP and NDC; internal power struggles playing out in the courts, parallel leaderships claiming legitimacy and candidates left to navigate an uncertain path to the 2027 ballot.

Opposition figures say the coincidence of these crises happening together at the same time, and just months ahead of the polls, is not accidental but an orchestrated attempt to weaken their parties as the APC consolidates its grip on power.

However, the APC and handlers of President Tinubu have continued to deny any such design.