By Sodiq Omolaoye,Ahead of the 2027 general elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said it has begun short-listing associations qualified for the next stage of political party registration, noting that the number of applications has ballooned to 151, with eight new submissions recorded last week.INEC’s National Commissioner and Chairman of the Information and Voter Education Committee, Sam Olumekun, who gave the hint in Abuja, also announced that they would unveil the shortlist immediately after the August 16 by-elections.It also disclosed that details of the latest requests, indicating their proposed names, acronyms, logos, addresses and interim leadership of the associations, are already uploaded to our website and other online platforms for public information. In addition to party registration updates, INEC announced the resumption of the nationwide Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise. The online pre-registration phase will begin on August 18, followed by in-person registration starting August 25. Both processes will run simultaneously until August 30, 2026. According to Olumekun, the registration will take place at 811 centres nationwide, including 774 Local Government offices and 37 State and Federal Capital Territory offices, operating from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday, excluding public holidays. “For easy identification, the Commission is deploying an online CVR Live Locator to assist citizens in locating the registration centres nationwide. The locator will go live a day before the commencement of the CVR on 17th August 2025 and can be accessed at the following address https://cvr.inecnigeria.org/locator.” This is as the African Democratic Congress (ADC) urged the electoral body to speed up the processes of recognizing its new leaders after the party had formally informed INEC about the new members of its National Working Committee (NWC). ADC founder and former national chairman, Ralph Nwosu, along with the secretary, Sai’d Abdullahi, in a letter dated July 29 to the Chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, stated that the new leadership was approved by the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC). The ADC’s Deputy National Welfare Secretary, David Itopa, had criticised INEC for not acknowledging the new NWC, despite the notification. “It is instructive to note that the ADC, after its NEC meeting, which was held last week with the supervision of INEC, has transmitted a letter to INEC signalling the change in leadership of the party,” he wrote.“It is, however, disturbing that INEC has yet to update its portal to reflect the change in leadership as of this moment. Nigerians should ask INEC why it is taking so long to effect the change.”
