By Our Reporter,  Abuja

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has warned that political parties found to have fielded candidates whose names were not on the membership registers submitted to the Commission will be barred from participating in the 2027 general elections.

The warning comes on the heels of the Supreme Court judgment of September 24, 2026, which affirmed the constitutionality of Sections 77(5), 77(6) and 77(7) of the Electoral Act 2026 and upheld INEC’s revised timetable and schedule of activities for the 2027 elections.

INEC National Commissioner in charge of Information and Voter Education, Malam Mohammed Haruna, stated this while appearing on Trust TV’s Daily Politics programme on Wednesday evening.

Haruna said such parties would not be allowed to substitute the affected candidates because they cannot be allowed to benefit from their own illegality.

“It’s like you committed an offence and then you come to benefit from it. You remember cases we had in Zamfara, you remember Plateau? The same thing. The parties, because they did the wrong thing, thought they could still push through the candidates,” he said.

“And the law is very clear. Once you do that kind of thing, you cannot benefit from it. You are benefiting from it if you are able to substitute a candidate.”

He explained that by implication, depending on when INEC concludes its review, “some parties may not be able to finish with even governorship candidates.”

“All the candidates, all the way to the Houses of Assembly, we verified them. If their names are not on the party register, they were not members of the party at the time they contested for those tickets,” he added.

Haruna acknowledged public anxiety over the Supreme Court judgment, but said the delay in making a definite pronouncement was due to the need to obtain legal advice after securing the Certified True Copy, CTC, of the judgment.

He said the Commission would be able to make a definite pronouncement on the judgment by Tuesday next week.

“You can’t be too careful with these things because even when you see copies and they tell you it’s a CTC, it may be forged. We’ve seen instances where people have even had the audacity to forge a Supreme Court judgment. So we have to be very careful,” he said.

The INEC Commissioner also expressed concern over violent rhetoric and threats in the ongoing campaigns.

“Those kinds of things, even if it’s a minority, it’s a cause for concern, because nobody should be threatened at all. There are talks, actions that are really a cause for worry, not just for us, but it should be a cause of worry for everybody, including the ruling party,” he stated.

He assured that the Commission is doing everything possible to secure the funds needed to conduct the elections, noting that it no longer has the luxury of time.