By Okoi Obono-obla
There is confusion galore and, should I say, a political misadventure in Cross River State, typical of what the African Democratic Congress (ADC) and the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) have become nationally.
In July 2025, when Atiku Abubakar and his cohorts moved into the ADC and attempted to take over its structure from its original founders, it triggered a political cataclysm, factional infighting and messy litigation. That cataclysm has now found a perfect laboratory in Cross River.
Consider the ADC first. On Monday, 31 August 2026, INEC pasted the Form EC9 provisional list at its headquarters along Murtala Mohammed Highway, Calabar. On that board, the Commission recognizes Ambassador Nkoyo Toyo, 67, a lawyer and diplomat, as the ADC governorship candidate. She was fielded by the David Mark-led national caretaker committee that emerged after the Atiku coalition joined the party.
A rival faction led by State Chairman Dr. John Ogar rejects that list outright. Ogar insists that those on the INEC board emerged from illegal congresses and an unconstitutional convention already annulled by the High Court and Court of Appeal, describes them as imposters, and says the matter is now before the Supreme Court. His faction affirms Dr. Effiong Nyong, a broadcaster and former aspirant who emerged through a delegates congress in Calabar, as the authentic candidate. The result: while INEC’s portal carries Toyo, Ogar’s faction is petitioning the national leadership against parading Senator Gershom Bassey and Toyo as representatives of the party. The ticket is in limbo.
The NDC is not faring better; it is perhaps more disorderly.
Its governorship candidate in Cross River is mired in controversy. John Odey, from Northern Cross River, is openly described by the party’s own National Publicity Secretary, Osa Director, as a placeholder. A placeholder, by definition, may be substituted or replaced.
This is a double fault. By the local zoning arrangement that has shaped Cross River politics since 1999, the governorship in 2027 is zoned to the Southern Senatorial District. The APC, ADC and PDP have all respected that convention, zoning their tickets to the South. The NDC’s choice of a Northern placeholder not only violates that understanding — a violation already condemned by the Obidient Movement in Cross River as a “secret primaries” plot — but also signals unseriousness.
The disorder extends to the House of Assembly. INEC displayed provisional Assembly lists on Saturday, 29 August 2026, for the 25 constituencies in Cross River. As of Monday, 31 August, there is no consolidated national PDF. Field checks at the 18 LGA INEC offices show a near-empty slate for the NDC.
The party’s National Secretary, Ikenna Alex-Morgan Enekweizu, says the authentic list has been submitted and that circulating lists are fake. Director calls reports of empty states “lies from the pit of hell.” Yet only one NDC Assembly candidate is independently verifiable in Cross River: Ambassador Kennedy Njar-Nsan for Ikom 1.
This tallies with verifiable data: on 29 August, INEC displayed provisional governorship candidates. By 31 August, checks confirmed NDC had no substantive governorship candidate in 11 states — Cross River, Borno, Ebonyi, Katsina, Kebbi, Niger, Plateau, Taraba, Yobe, Zamfara and Akwa Ibom — covering 233 LGAs, 30.1% of Nigeria. Nationally, the party filed only about 70% of National Assembly positions, 328 of 469, leaving 141 federal constituencies blank.
Why does this matter? Cross River has 18 local government areas, 196 electoral wards, and 3,281 polling units. These are the fulcrum for electoral organization, voting and mobilization. A governorship candidate and Assembly candidates are vital tools for galvanizing grassroots support at those levels.
How can the people of Cross River State in particular, and Nigerians generally, trust these two political parties, which are so disorderly, confused, and mired in factional infighting and messy litigation, and still squabbling over who their State Assembly candidates, gubernatorial candidates, placeholders, or even National Assembly candidates are, at this twilight of the general elections and in this season of electioneering campaigns when political parties and their candidates should be engaging us on their manifestos and programmes and what they would do in the event they win the elections?
The answer is straightforward. You cannot win a presidential election on 15 January 2027 needing 25% in 24 states when you have no structure in 11 states. You cannot ask Cross Riverians to give you 25% when you have no coordinator in their ward, no agent in their polling unit, and no credible governorship candidate from their zone to anchor your campaign.
The failure of the 2026 filing cannot be cured by substitution. It will cost 4-6 million votes on January 15 — not from lack of popularity, but from lack of ballot presence and agent coverage.
Unless the ADC resolves its Toyo vs Nyong Supreme Court battle, and unless the NDC replaces its Northern placeholder with a substantive Southern candidate and fills its 24 empty Assembly slots, both parties will enter the election as ballot logos without boots on the ground. And in Cross River, elections are not won on social media lists. They are won in the 3,281 polling units.
