Abdullahi Sarki
The Kabiru Turaki-led faction of the Peoples Democratic Party has suffered a major setback after the Independent National Electoral Commission rejected its presidential nomination of former President Goodluck Jonathan.
Turaki’s camp had on Friday maintained that it physically delivered Jonathan’s nomination forms and those of other candidates for the 2027 general elections to INEC, further fueling the party’s deepening leadership crisis.
Victoria Eta-Messi, INEC’s Director of Voter Education and Publicity, informed Saturday Vanguard that the commission strictly processes nominations through its official electronic portal and does not accept physical submissions.
“Submission is only done on a dedicated portal as stipulated by our regulations and guidelines please,” she said.
However, Comrade Ini Ememobong, National Publicity Secretary of the Turaki faction, told journalists that the group resorted to manual submission after INEC refused to grant them access codes for the electronic filing system. He argued that the codes were an administrative formality, not a legal requirement.
The leadership tussle within the PDP continues to escalate as both factions, each, led by the extant Minister of the Federal Capital Territoy, Nyesome Wike and Saminu Turaki (SAN) lay claim to the party’s structures ahead of the 2027 elections.
INEC has maintained its stance that all nominations must follow its electronic submission protocols, leaving the Turaki faction’s manual submission in limbo.
