By Nigeria’s 2027 election season formally opened on Wednesday, but the more closely watched moment came a day earlier, when presidential candidates and political party leaders gathered in Abuja to sign the first National Peace Accord of the cycle, pledging to keep the coming campaign focused on issues rather than division.
The ceremony, held Tuesday at the Bola Ahmed Tinubu International Conference Centre and organised by the National Peace Committee in partnership with The Kukah Centre, brought together candidates, party chairmen and officials just a day before INEC’s timetable opened the door to formal campaigning for the presidential and National Assembly elections. INEC Chairman Prof. Joash Amupitan attended in person.
President Bola Tinubu did not attend himself, sending the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, George Akume, to sign and read his remarks on his behalf, alongside APC National Chairman Nentawe Yilwatda. In the message delivered by Akume, Tinubu acknowledged that disagreement and competing visions are a normal part of democratic contests, but drew a line at anything that could fracture the country along ethnic or religious lines, urging candidates to keep the campaign a contest of ideas rather than identity.
Peter Obi, running under the Nigeria Democratic Congress after his earlier bids on other party platforms, signed in person, as did Omoyele Sowore of the African Action Congress and Adewale Adebayo of the Social Democratic Party, among others. Obi used the moment to caution voters directly, urging them to hold accountable any candidate who fails to live up to the accord’s commitments once campaigning intensifies.
Notably absent was former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, the African Democratic Congress candidate, who neither attended nor sent a representative. Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde of the Allied Peoples Movement was also absent, though his running mate, Lawal Daura, attended in his place.
What the Accord Commits Candidates To
Organisers described the accord as more than symbolic, saying it is grounded in the Constitution, the Electoral Act and INEC’s own guidelines. Signatories committed to peaceful, issue-based campaigning and to rejecting violence, hate speech, personal attacks and the spread of misinformation, including deepfakes and other AI-generated disinformation, a concern several speakers raised given the growing role of artificial intelligence in political messaging.
INEC’s Amupitan told attendees that political discourse in Nigeria had increasingly drifted from policy debate toward character attacks and identity-based mobilisation, and urged candidates to keep their campaigns anchored in issues that affect ordinary Nigerians. The National Peace Committee, chaired by former Head of State Abdulsalami Abubakar and convened by Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, said a second phase of the initiative would follow the elections themselves, focused on encouraging candidates to accept results and support Nigeria’s democratic stability regardless of outcome.
A Familiar Ritual, Renewed Ahead of a Bigger Test
Nigeria’s presidential candidates have signed similar accords before every general election since the National Peace Committee’s formation in 2014, including twice ahead of the 2023 polls. Whether Tuesday’s signing translates into calmer campaigning will now be tested over the coming months, as candidates fan out across the country ahead of the 2027 vote, process INEC estimates could involve close to 100 million registered voters and roughly 1.4 million ad hoc staff deployed nationwide on election day.
