AS THE 2027 CAMPAIGNS BEGIN

By Nick Dazang 

The high-stakes campaign for the Osun State Off-Cycle Governorship Election has been so tense, so replete with violence, and so framed by bellicose rhetoric, that we have almost slept-walked into a major electoral milestone without taking due notice.

On Wednesday, 19th August 2026, and pursuant to Section 98(1) of the Electoral Act 2026, campaign in public, of every political party, shall commence 150 days before polling day (Saturday, 16th January, 2027), and 24 hours prior to that day, for the Presidential and National Assembly Elections.

In the same vein, and guided by the same Section 98(1) of the Electoral Act 2026, campaign for Governorship and State Houses of Assembly Elections, will commence in public, on Wednesday, 9th September 2026, and end 24 hours, before polling day (Saturday, 6th February 2027).

This milestone is crucially important to the 2027 General Elections. The campaign period of 150 days, which comes to exactly five months, provides a pivotal window for political parties and their candidates to market themselves and their platforms to the electorate.

In time past, rather than for the political parties and candidates to comport themselves with civility and decorum, recourse was found in boorish and uncouth pronouncements. Elections were either framed as “do-or-die affairs” or electoral contests were construed, primitively, as events in which gladiators wrestled themselves to the finish.

Resort was also found in deliberate misinformation, disinformation and hate speech. The social media, which have a capacity to go viral and to get the country agog, were exploited with recklessness.

These disingenuous tendencies do not only create an atmosphere for violence, with attendant adverse consequences for the sanctity of our elections, they set a negative tone for followers.

Since most of these untoward acts are perpetrated by the political class, their followers, who view them as role models, subscribe to their actions and pronouncements, lock, stock and barrel.

What is more, they act them out to the detriment of the electoral process.
Learning from the series of recently conducted off-cycle governorship elections, particularly the violence and acts of intimidation that characterized the lead-up to the Osun State off-cycle governorship election, the political parties and their candidates should eschew comments that incite their followers to violence. They should also refrain from pronouncements that needlessly overheat the polity.

Campaigns should be premised on issues instead of dwelling on personalities. Political parties should seize the campaign season to showcase the policies they intend to carry out when elected. They should then proceed to get the buy-in of voters.

Debates should be informed and muscular. They should not degenerate into name-calling or resort to primordial sentiments such as ethnicity and religion. We expect candidates to honor platforms that invite them to engage in debates. Such platforms should be viewed healthily by candidates as opportunities to sell themselves and their parties. Voters, too, through such debates, should be able to benignly assess and appreciate the candidates, their competencies and what they are likely going to bring to the table of development. They should make their choices informed by these considerations.

Our challenges as a country are dire. Nigerians are, therefore, most likely to be persuaded to construe those who shun debates as being insolent, discourteous or inept. As this writer has often argued, debates and contestations go with the territory of elections. They are not for the faint of heart. We, therefore, expect our candidates to be persons of character, courage and savvy. Besides, as the time-honored saying goes, “if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen”.

An important adjunct to these campaigns is the issue of election campaign expenses. Thankfully, Sections 89, 91, 92, 93, and 94 of the Electoral Act 2026 deal with the power of the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) to limit contributions to candidates and political parties. They also deal with candidates’ spending limits, prohibition on political party ownership of foreign funds, expenditure, auditing and reporting.

Even though election expenses deal with “expenses incurred by a political party within the period from the date notice is given by the Commission to conduct an election up to, and including, the polling day in respect of the particular election”, monitoring these expenses by INEC is key.

First, a rigorous surveillance of these expenses ensures that political parties do not access monies from foreign entities, thereby forestalling external influence or tilting our election in favor of a candidate by a foreign entity/interest.

Second, effective monitoring reinforces one of the Commission’s core principles, namely, providing a level playing field to all contestants. A level playing field is a condition precedent to credible elections.

Third, a vigorous monitoring of these elections expenses is important, especially in the light of the recent consequential adjustments visited on these expenses by the Electoral Act 2026.

Although these adjustments were supposed to reflect our current realities, some aspects were so overdone as to engender elite capture of our elections, and by extension, a troubling and hurtling descent to plutocracy.

The adjustments, as reflected in the Electoral Act 2026, ranged from 100% to 900% in increase. For instance, whereas in the Electoral Act 2022 the highest amount a presidential candidate could expend was N5billion, it has been upped, courtesy of the Electoral Act 2026, to N10billion. And whereas donation per individual/entity to a presidential candidate was pegged at N50 million, it is now N500million. A presidential candidate is thus, thanks to this upward adjustment, home and dry, financially, if he/she is able to summon or rally deep pockets to his/her campaign.

No doubt about it, the issue of campaign finance has been a tricky and complicated area for most Election Management Bodies(EMBs), including INEC. The Commission has, over the years, tried to up the ante by devising ways to track these expenses. But the devil is always in the details of setting broad and scientific benchmarks, and reporting these expenses in a detailed and a robust manner.

We expect that in the aftermath of the 2027 General Elections, audited returns made to INEC, by the political parties, should be duly published in the media and the official websites of these political parties. Stakeholders should then be in a position to examine and comment on these returns. That is the law. That is the hallmark of transparency. And it is the way to go.