The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has accused President Bola Tinubu of laying the groundwork to manipulate the 2027 general election by engineering systems that would give him total control of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
In a statement issued on Sunday, June 8, the group’s National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, claimed Tinubu’s administration has been quietly installing loyalists within INEC and coercing opposition figures to join the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
According to HURIWA, part of the manipulation includes appointing known APC members as INEC National Commissioners, thereby compromising the commission’s neutrality.
It also alleged that Tinubu is pressuring serving governors from the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) who are seeking second terms to join the APC as a cover for rigging elections in their respective states.
“This development formed the basis why the National Chairman of the APC, Alhaji Abdullahi Ganduje, openly boasted that his political party would win over two-thirds of the states of the federation and keep a commanding control and leadership of the National Assembly,” the statement said.
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The association expressed concern over what it described as a carefully orchestrated, well-funded attempt by the APC to manipulate the 2027 polls, and called on civil society organisations to resist and expose the ruling party’s strategy.
“By illegally staging a regime change in Rivers State and unconstitutionally suspending the governor Siminalayi Fubara so as to force him into a sudden surrender, is a well-coordinated strategy by the APC to rig the result of the 2027 election in Rivers State even before the first ballot is cast,” the group stated.
HURIWA also pointed to recent remarks by Ganduje about the planned defection of more PDP governors and lawmakers to the APC as evidence of a deeper political calculation.
“These public outbursts of the handpicked National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress that more PDP Governors and lawmakers would move into APC soon is not a fluke but a revelation of the inner workings of the National ruling party and their electoral strategy for 2027,” it stated.
The association warned that the ruling party’s long-term aim is to eliminate multiparty democracy in Nigeria.
“The APC is plotting to establish a China-styled communist one party state in Nigeria. The blueprint for turning Nigeria into an authoritarianism is already being systematically enforced by the APC,” it stressed.