By Chief J.S. Okutepa, SAN
The recent decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Independent National Electoral Commission vs. Zenith Labour Party, Appeal No: SC/CV/495/2026, a judgment that was delivered on 24 September 2026, has generated an important constitutional and electoral question that needs to be carefully interrogated. The question is can a judgment which declares a political party ineligible to field candidates realistically be said to affect only the political party and not the candidates whom that party seeks to sponsor to contest the said elections.
The Supreme Court restored the validity of sections 77(5), 77(6), 77(7) and 84(2) of the Electoral Act 2026, and it held, among other things, that the statutory provisions governing party membership registers and candidate nomination are not inconsistent with the Constitution. Section 84 (2) provides a serious statutory consequence for a political party that fails to comply with the requirement to submit its membership register as prescribed by the Electoral Act 2026. It is to the effect that the party becomes ineligible to field a candidate for the election.
In the lead judgment of the Court, the Supreme Court expressly distinguished between the ineligibility of the political party to field candidates and the personal qualification of an individual candidate. On that interpretation, the statutory default does not, in itself, pronounce the individual candidate personally disqualified, their lordships reasoned. With respect, however, that distinction raises a further constitutional question which deserves serious consideration. A candidate cannot exist electorally in a vacuum.Nigeria does not presently operate a general system of independent candidacy.
The Constitution makes party membership and sponsorship integral to qualification for several elective offices. For example, section 131(c) of the 1999 constitution requires a presidential candidate to be a member of a political party and sponsored by that political party. Section 177(c) of the same constitution contains the corresponding requirement for a governorship candidate. Similar constitutional provisions apply to membership of the National and State Houses of Assembly. The Supreme Court has previously recognised that Nigerian electoral law does not recognise independent candidacy under the constitutional framework in several of its decisions which I need not cite here.
This produces an important legal relationship. It is political parties that nominate, sponsor candidatez to contest elections in Nigeria. The candidate’s legal capacity to participate in the election is therefore not completely independent of the legal capacity of the sponsoring political party. If the law says that a political party “shall not be eligible to field a candidate,” the immediate prohibition is undoubtedly imposed upon the party. But the practical and constitutional consequence is that the candidate cannot simply step outside the party structure and say: “Although my party cannot field me, I remain an independent candidate.” There is presently no such general constitutional route.The apparent distinction between party ineligibility and candidate qualification is a distinction with respect without practical utilitarian values in law and constitution.
This is where the judgment requires careful analysis.
There is a legitimate distinction between whether a person possesses the personal qualifications prescribed by the Constitution; and whether the political party through which that person must contest is legally entitled to sponsor and field him.The first concerns the candidate personally. The second concerns the legal validity of the candidate’s electoral platform. The two questions should not be conflated. But neither should they be treated as completely unrelated. A person may satisfy every personal qualification prescribed by the Constitution—age, citizenship, education and other requirements—and yet still be unable to contest a particular election if the constitutional requirement of party membership and sponsorship is not satisfied.
The Supreme Court itself has previously treated party membership and sponsorship as part of the qualification framework. In Rt. Hon. Prince Terhemen Tarzoor vs. Ortom Samuel Ioraer & Ors, the Court considered section 177(c), which expressly requires that a gubernatorial candidate be a member of a political party and be sponsored by that party. Consequently, party eligibility and candidate eligibility are analytically distinct but electorally interconnected.
The real question what happens to the candidate?
Suppose Party Zero fails to comply with section 77 and, by operation of section 77(7), becomes ineligible to field candidates. Candidate A has been nominated by Party Zero. Can Candidate A nevertheless contest the election? If the answer is yes, the immediate question is under whose sponsorship?
If the answer is that Candidate A can contest without Party Zero the legal system would effectively have created independent candidacy by judicial interpretation. But the Constitution does not presently provide such a general mechanism. If the answer is that Candidate A must continue to be sponsored by Party Zero the next question becomes unavoidable: how can a party which the Electoral Act says is not eligible to field a candidate validly sponsor one? That is the constitutional tension which the present controversy exposes. The judgment of the Supreme Court should therefore not be misunderstood.
The proper argument is not that the Supreme Court expressly held that every affected candidate is automatically disqualified. The judgment says otherwise. The statutory sanction is directed at the party’s eligibility to field candidates and does not, by itself, pronounce every individual member personally disqualified. Rather, the argument is that the legal consequence for the party necessarily has consequences for the electoral status of candidates who derive their right to contest from that party’s sponsorship.That distinction is important. A candidate may not be personally disqualified in the abstract, yet may be incapable of lawfully contesting through a party that is itself legally incapable of fielding a candidate. That is not the same thing as saying that the Supreme Court has personally disqualified the candidate.The Constitution must be read as a whole.The Constitution should not be interpreted in isolated compartments.
Section 131(c), of the 1999 Constitution for example, does not merely require a presidential aspirant to be a member of a political party. It also requires that he be sponsored by that political party. Section 177(c) of the same constitution imposes the same requirement for the governorship. The constitutional architecture therefore makes party sponsorship an essential link between the individual and the electoral contest. The Supreme Court has historically acknowledged this relationship. In Amaechi vs. INEC, the Court observed that Nigerian law did not recognise independent candidacy and emphasised the centrality of the sponsoring political party to the electoral process.
Therefore, where a statute validly removes a political party’s legal capacity to field candidates, it becomes difficult to maintain that the candidates sponsored by that party are entirely unaffected. The better legal position, therefore, is, the judgment did not automatically disqualify an individual candidate merely because the candidate’s political party has violated section 77. But where the consequence of the party’s statutory default is that the party is legally incapable of fielding candidates, the candidate’s constitutional ability to contest through that party necessarily comes into question, because Nigeria does not presently recognise general independent candidacy. This formulation respects both sides of the Supreme Court’s reasoning.
It does not convert a sanction against a political party into an automatic personal disqualification of every candidate. At the same time, it avoids the equally problematic proposition that the candidate’s electoral status can be completely divorced from the legal status of the party upon whose sponsorship his candidacy depends. It is submitted with respect that the INEC vs. Zenith Labour Party decision should therefore be understood as having two dimensions.
The first is the direct statutory consequence, a political party which falls within the sanction prescribed by section 77 may become ineligible to field candidates. The second is the consequential constitutional question, what is the legal status of a candidate whose only constitutional route into the election is through the sponsorship of that very political party? That question cannot be answered simply by saying that the candidate has not been personally disqualified.
The absence of personal disqualification does not necessarily create a positive right to contest an election. Qualification to contest requires satisfaction of the constitutional conditions for candidacy, including, where applicable, party membership and sponsorship. Thus, although the Supreme Court’s judgment may be said technically to operate directly against the political party, its consequences cannot, in practical and constitutional terms, be divorced from the candidates whose participation in the election depends upon the party’s lawful capacity to sponsor and field them. Indeed, the present controversy demonstrates a fundamental feature of Nigeria’s electoral jurisprudence in a system without general independent candidacy, the legal fate of the political party and the electoral fate of its candidate are inevitably connected.
INEC itself has acknowledged that the judgment has generated complaints from political parties, aspirants and others and was reviewing the Certified True Copy of the decision following its receipt on 6 October 2026. The ultimate issue, therefore, is not merely whether the party is disqualified. It is whether, under a constitutional system in which party sponsorship is an essential component of candidacy, a candidate can lawfully contest an election where the sponsoring party itself is legally prohibited from fielding candidates.
That is the deeper constitutional question which the judgment has brought into sharp focus. For me although the ground of disqualification to question election has been removed from the Electoral Act 2026, the Constitutional ground of disqualification can be raised in election petitions against any candidate sponsored by political parties that are disqualified from fielding candidates. The last has not been heard on this matter.
