The nomination window: why errors in a candidate’s paperwork are irreversible

Most electoral disputes in Nigeria are not about votes. They are about paperwork completed months before the poll, under deadlines that admit no correction. The Electoral Act 2026 fixes that window with unusual severity, and its operation is worth stating plainly.

Section 29(1) requires a political party to submit its list of candidates, nominated through valid primaries, not later than 120 days before the date appointed for a general election. The list is accompanied by each candidate’s sworn affidavit and the prescribed supporting information under section 29(2). From the moment of submission, the accuracy of those documents becomes a standing legal exposure. The practical point is simple: nomination papers must be verified against the documentary record while the statutory window remains open.

The correction mechanisms are narrower than candidates commonly assume. Withdrawal, under section 31, requires the candidate’s written notice and sworn affidavit to be delivered personally to the nominating party, which must convey them to the Commission not later than 90 days before the election. Substitution, under section 33, is available only where a candidate withdraws or dies, and the affected party must hold another primary within 14 days to produce and submit a replacement. There is no general provision for a party to swap a candidate because a defect has been discovered in the nomination papers. Once the windows close, the list is the list.

The practical consequence is that the decisive phase of candidate protection occurs before submission. Affidavit contents, certificate particulars, party membership records and the procedural regularity of the primary itself must be verified against the documentary record while correction remains possible. After the section 29 deadline, a defect is no longer an administrative problem; it is litigation material, either for the candidate’s opponents or against them.

None of this is a comment on any pending contest. It is the architecture of the statute, and it rewards those who treat nomination as a compliance exercise with a court-proof record.