HURIWA Presses INEC To Break Silence On PDP Access Code
Pressure is mounting on the Independent National Electoral Commission to state plainly whether it has handed the Candidates’ Access Code for the 2027 general elections to any faction of the Peoples Democratic Party, as a prominent civil rights group warns that the electoral body risks overtaking a case still pending before the courts.
The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, in a statement issued on Sunday by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, said the commission owed Nigerians a duty of transparency and cautioned that its continued silence was deepening public suspicion about the fairness of the process. According to the group, if reports that the code had gone to the faction associated with the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Chief Nyesom Wike, were accurate, the commission should explain the legal basis for that step in the face of unresolved litigation over who validly controls the party.
The access code sits at the centre of the dispute because parties cannot upload the names of their candidates to the commission’s portal without it. INEC opened that portal in late June, with National Commissioner Mohammed Haruna having confirmed publicly that political parties began collecting their nomination codes from June 26, while stressing that the commission recognises only the PDP leadership endorsed by the court. The commission has set a firm deadline for the submission of candidates, a timeline the group argues makes the matter urgent.
HURIWA rested much of its argument on judicial findings it says the commission cannot ignore. The group stated that the Court of Appeal had held that the tenure of the party’s former National Legal Adviser, A.K. Ajibade, SAN, expired in December 2025, and that no credible evidence established his re-election. On that basis, it argued, any instruction traced to him lacked validity, weakening the legal foundation of the convention held on March 29, 2026 by the faction aligned with Wike. “The Commission must not take any administrative step capable of foisting a fait accompli on the court or rendering the pending proceedings merely academic,” the association said.
The group anchored its call on a specific case. It noted that the PDP Board of Trustees, led by former Senate President Adolphus Wabara, constituted an interim National Working Committee headed by Chief Kabir Tanimu Turaki, SAN, and filed Suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/1159/2026 before the Federal High Court in Abuja, seeking recognition of that interim leadership. The court, HURIWA recalled, fixed July 7, 2026 for hearing after ordering an accelerated hearing in view of the commission’s electoral timetable. Counsel to the plaintiffs, it added, had told the court that parties had already begun receiving the Candidates’ Access Code, and had asked that the interim leadership also be issued the code to prevent prejudice before the suit is decided.
The group’s demands were laid out in the alternative. “If INEC has not issued the Candidates’ Access Code to any PDP faction, it should say so unequivocally and reassure Nigerians that it will abide by whatever lawful orders ultimately emerge from the courts,” HURIWA said. Should the commission have already released the code despite the pending disputes, it argued, the decision should be reviewed at once in the interest of justice, fairness and constitutional order. And if the commission eventually decides to issue the code before the litigation ends, the group insisted it should go to the interim leadership constituted by the Board of Trustees. It urged the commission, now chaired by Professor Joash Amupitan, to maintain neutrality, uphold the rule of law and avoid any action capable of eroding public confidence ahead of 2027.
The controversy is the latest turn in a leadership crisis that has run through the main opposition party for months and has already produced conflicting rulings. The Supreme Court, in a split judgment delivered on April 30, 2026, invalidated the national convention held in Ibadan on November 15 and 16, 2025, which had produced a Turaki leadership backed by Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde. Following that ruling, the Board of Trustees reconstituted Turaki and others into the interim National Working Committee, which has since operated alongside the leadership recognised by the commission, made up of National Chairman Abdulrahman Mohammed and National Secretary Samuel Anyanwu, and aligned with Wike.
Both camps have since moved in parallel. The Wike leaning leadership conducted primaries under the commission’s supervision and, according to publicly reported accounts, received the access code and commenced uploading its candidates. The Turaki faction ran its own nationwide primaries and issued certificates of return to a rival slate said to number more than 1,470 candidates, including a presidential nominee the faction has publicly named as former President Goodluck Jonathan. The two sides have traded accusations over the authenticity of nomination forms, with the recognised leadership dismissing the rival slate and the interim camp insisting its position rests on subsisting court judgments.
With the Federal High Court due to hear the matter on July 7 and the submission window closing shortly after, the coming days are likely to test how far the commission is willing to move before the courts have spoken, and how the interplay between administrative timelines and judicial process will shape the opposition’s standing going into 2027.