Former Chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Sam Amadi, has criticised the conduct of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) primary elections, describing them as poorly organised and heavily manipulated.
In a post shared on X on Thursday, Amadi said the NDC conducted the weakest primary elections among the major political parties preparing for the 2027 general elections.
While acknowledging that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) also held flawed primaries, Amadi maintained that the African Democratic Congress (ADC) emerged as the most organised of the three parties, despite allegations of irregularities.
According to him, ADC ranked first in terms of organisation, APC came second, while NDC placed last. However, he stressed that all three parties conducted heavily rigged primary elections.
Amadi explained that the current political climate and limited timelines make it difficult for political parties to organise credible and transparent primaries. He noted, however, that the NDC’s relatively short preparation period may have contributed to its poor performance.
“@NigeriaNDCHQ had bad primaries. Nothing special about it. @OfficialAPCNg primaries were similarly horrible,” Amadi wrote.
“@ADCNig is the only major party that had a ‘well-organized’ primary. But it was similarly rigged. ‘Well-organized’ means ‘better coordinated’, ‘well-structured’. It does not mean ‘free and fair’.
“So, the verdict remains the same: ADC comes first and APC second on organization. NDC comes last. But, all had very rigged primaries. It is almost impossible to have ‘free and fair’ primaries under the current regime and timelines.”
He further stated that although the NDC performed relatively better than expected given its limited preparation time, the party must improve its internal processes if it hopes to establish itself as Nigeria’s leading opposition force.
“NDC has done relatively better than other parties considering it had shorter time to do much. It could have done better with its primaries, but there are many greedy and poor people in Nigerian politics. It has to step up now if it wants to be taken as Nigeria’s main opposition,” he added.
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