₦100 Million to Dream: ADC Opens Door to 2027 Presidential Race with New Primaries Timetable.
Summary
The African Democratic Congress has unveiled its 2026 primary elections timetable, setting May 5 as the opening date for the sale of nomination forms and scheduling its presidential primary for May 25. The announcement, made in a statement by the party's National Publicity Secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, outlines a structured schedule running from form sales through screening, appeals, and primaries across all elective positions. The presidential nomination form is pegged at ₦100 million matching the ruling APC and making the ADC the second party to set that price point ahead of the 2027 general elections.
The ADC is moving. Quietly, deliberately, and with a timetable that leaves very little room for delay.
The African Democratic Congress officially unveiled its 2026 primary elections schedule on Sunday, releasing a full timetable that kicks off with the sale of nomination forms from May 5 to May 10, 2026, and runs through to a Special National Convention on May 27, where final ratifications will be made. It's a tight window three weeks from first form sale to convention. But the party clearly wants this done fast.
The timetable breaks down as follows: form submissions run from May 11 to 13; screening of aspirants takes place May 14 to 15; screening results are published May 17; appeals are heard May 18 to 19; and the final list of cleared aspirants drops on May 20. Then the elections themselves begin.
State House of Assembly, House of Representatives, and Senate primaries all hold simultaneously at the ward level on May 21. Governorship primaries follow on May 22. The presidential primary — the one everyone is watching is set for May 25, with a National Executive Committee meeting on May 26 and the Special National Convention on May 27.
Now, the money part. The presidential nomination form is priced at ₦100 million, governorship at ₦50 million, Senate at ₦20 million, House of Representatives at ₦10 million, and State House of Assembly at ₦3 million. Those are not small numbers. The ADC is aware of that which is why it has introduced a discount structure. Youths get a 50 per cent reduction, while women and persons with disabilities receive a 25 per cent concession. Whether those concessions meaningfully change who can afford to participate is another question entirely.
The ADC's ambitions for 2027 are well-documented. Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar left the PDP in 2025 to join the party as part of a coalition aimed at challenging the APC in the next general election with ADC leaders framing the move as a bid to prevent one-party dominance and present a united front in the presidential contest. Peter Obi's position remains publicly unresolved he joined the coalition but has not formally registered with the ADC.
None of that background makes the internal crisis any less real, though. The party is still grappling with a protracted leadership dispute a recent Supreme Court ruling reinstated former Senate President David Mark's faction, but factional expulsions, legal battles over congresses, and divisions over primary formats continue to simmer beneath the surface. It's the kind of internal tension that can quietly unravel even the most carefully drawn timetable.
Analysis
A ₦100 million presidential form is not an invitation. It's a filter. And the ADC knows it. Setting the same price as the APC the ruling party with federal patronage, incumbency advantage, and access to state resources is either a statement of ambition or a miscalculation, depending on how generously you read it. On one hand, pricing the form at parity with the APC signals that the ADC sees itself as a serious presidential platform, not a vehicle for symbolic participation. On the other hand, it raises the immediate and uncomfortable question of who, exactly, can write a ₦100 million cheque to contest a primary in a party that doesn't yet hold a single governorship. The discount for youths is a nice gesture. Fifty per cent off ₦100 million is still ₦50 million a figure that excludes the vast majority of young Nigerians who might otherwise have something to offer a political stage that desperately needs fresh faces. If the ADC is serious about inclusivity, it needs to say so in numbers that actually open doors, not just in language that sounds like it does. The bigger context here is the coalition. Atiku Abubakar's presence in the ADC and the unresolved question of Peter Obi means that whoever emerges from this presidential primary will carry not just a party ticket but the weight of one of the most watched opposition realignments in recent Nigerian political history. That's enormous pressure for a party still untangling itself from a Supreme Court ruling and factional warfare. The timetable is clean. The structure is logical. But between a May 5 form sale and a May 25 presidential primary, the ADC must somehow convince a sceptical public and its own members that it's house is in order. Whether this process ends in a candidate who can genuinely challenge Tinubu in 2027, or dissolves into the familiar Nigerian pattern of legal injunctions and convention disputes, will depend less on the timetable and more on whether the men and women at the top of this party can hold it together long enough to matter.
Tags