Political commentator Sam Amadi has described the conduct of party primary elections across Nigeria as largely disorganized and compromised, while singling out the African Democratic Congress as the most structured among the parties that have conducted their primaries so far.
In a social media post reviewing the ongoing internal elections, Amadi said most parties had failed to meet basic standards of transparency and order, but noted that the ADC stood out in comparison.
He wrote:
“So far @ADCNig has been the best in organizing primary elections. On the whole, the primary elections have been flawed and fraudulent. But the leadership at the ADC has been more organized and structured. It has delivered the best primary elections in this electoral cycle.”
Amadi also assessed the performance of the All Progressives Congress, placing it second overall but faulting its processes for inconsistency and credibility gaps.
“@OfficialAPCNg is close second. It was bold, ambitious, but reckless and fraudulent. Its primaries were less efficient and more fraudulent. But kudos for APC being bold and largely coherent.”
He argued that across the board, most party primaries lacked the institutional discipline required for credible outcomes, describing many of them as fundamentally flawed.
In a pointed remark, he added:
“If I did not mention you, then it means yours was a joke.”
Amadi further questioned the viability of direct primaries under current conditions, stressing that parties often lack the basic structures needed to properly define membership and voter eligibility.
“There is no way to have a good direct primary without clear rules, good systems and protocols. You cannot have direct primary if you do not know how to determine a member of a party.”
He also called for a rethink of how primaries are conducted, suggesting that compressing them into a single day undermines their credibility.
“We should not have primaries in one day. It should take weeks or months to have meaningful elective primaries.”
The commentary comes amid ongoing internal party exercises ahead of future elections, with political observers continuing to raise concerns about logistics, transparency, and the integrity of candidate selection processes.
Peter Obi has not publicly reacted to Amadi’s comments at the time of this report.
