The Nigeria Democratic Congress has raised concerns over the appearance of 10 names on the Independent National Electoral Commission’s list of candidates for the 2027 Anambra State House of Assembly elections.
The party said it did not nominate the affected individuals and had no record of submitting their Form EC9E documents to the electoral commission.
It consequently called on INEC to conduct an electronic audit of its nomination portal to uncover how the names and credentials of the individuals were uploaded to the system.
The NDC Director of New Media and Strategic Communications, Theophilus Agada, made this known in a statement released in Abuja on Wednesday.
According to Agada, the 10 individuals were not products of either the party’s primary nomination exercise or its subsequent appeal process.
He said, “The 10 names published by INEC neither emerged from the party’s nomination process nor its appeal process.
“The NDC uploaded only candidates who emerged from our appeal process, but the commission rejected the names approved by the party and subsequently published persons unknown to us.”
The names in question are Umennaajiego Ezenwa for Onitsha South 1, Akpotue Chibuike for Onitsha South II, Nwankwo Chiemerie for Orumba North, Maduagwu Eric K. for Anaocha I, Ngoebisi Obinna for Idemili North and Isintume Charles for Njikoka I.
The remaining names are Nwachukwu Nonso for Nnewi South I, Okeke Akunne for Nnewi South II, Nnonyelu Samson E. for Ayamelum and Azotani Francis for Dunukofia.
The party maintained that the responsibility for selecting candidates and forwarding their details to INEC rests with political parties.
“It is the party’s legal responsibility to submit the names and credentials of its nominated candidates,” the statement said.
“The NDC did not collect or forward completed EC9E forms for the 10 persons whose names later appeared on INEC’s published list.”
Agada therefore questioned the process through which the credentials of the 10 individuals were obtained and entered into INEC’s system.
He asked: “How did the commission obtain their credentials when it is the party’s legal duty to submit the names of its approved candidates?”
The development is the latest in a dispute between the NDC and INEC over the party’s candidate list for the 2027 elections.
The party had earlier threatened to institute legal proceedings against the electoral commission, alleging that names submitted by the NDC were replaced with individuals it did not recognise.
The NDC claimed that similar names appeared in several constituencies, with Anambra being a major area of concern. It also alleged that the situation could cause confusion and create divisions among opposition parties ahead of the 2027 elections.
The party’s National Chairman, Senator Moses Cleopas, had previously raised the alarm in a statement issued in Abuja on Sunday.
Cleopas said the party discovered that some individuals published by INEC as its candidates for the Anambra State House of Assembly elections were not nominated by the NDC.
He stressed the importance of the issue, noting that Anambra is the home state of the party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi.
In response to the allegations, INEC began checking its records to establish how the disputed names appeared on the NDC’s list.
The commission, however, rejected the allegation that it had substituted the party’s candidates.
INEC’s Chief Press Secretary and Media Adviser to the INEC Chairman, Adedayo Oketola, said the commission had no legal power to select candidates for political parties or replace candidates properly nominated by them.