APC e-registration
With political calculations for the 2027 general election gathering pace, Nigeria’s two biggest parties are once again trying to project strength, structure, and momentum. The ruling All Progressives Congress has resumed its APC e-registration exercise nationwide, while a faction of the Peoples Democratic Party says it has already recorded more than 4.2 million members on its digital register. Punch reported both developments on April 2, 2026, placing them squarely within the widening contest for early advantage before party primaries and the larger national campaign season.
The resumption of APC e-registration was announced by the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, who said the exercise had restarted in all wards and designated locations across the country. According to the statement published by Punch, the ruling party asked existing members to validate their membership and encouraged new entrants to join, adding that applicants must be at least 18 years old and possess a valid National Identification Number. Morka said the process is intended to digitise the party’s register, preserve the integrity of records, improve access to membership data, support planning and management decisions, promote internal democracy, and deepen democratic innovation.
That explanation matters because APC e-registration is not just an administrative routine. In modern politics, the battle for clean databases, verifiable members, and updated ward structures is also a battle for internal control. A party that knows exactly who its members are, where they are, and how they are distributed enters primaries and national elections with a major organisational edge. That is one reason the return of APC e-registration deserves more attention than a simple party notice might suggest. It speaks to preparation, discipline, and an attempt to avoid the chaos that often trails analogue membership records.
On the other side of the divide, the Tanimu Turaki-led PDP faction used the moment to push a different message. Its spokesman, Ini Ememobong, told journalists that the faction’s digital membership drive had recorded 4,264,675 members by midnight on March 31, 2026. He said the exercise was carried out under tight conditions and relied heavily on volunteers who moved through both urban and rural communities to register members. He described the process as difficult but successful, and argued that the outcome showed that, even with the turbulence inside the opposition party, its electoral base had not evaporated.
https://ogelenews.ng/apc-e-registration
That claim gives the story its real political edge. If APC e-registration is the ruling party’s way of showing structure, the PDP faction’s membership figure is its way of claiming relevance. Ememobong said the registration data proved that politicians may be defecting, but the electorate is not necessarily moving with them. He added that people who wanted to join the APC could easily have done so, but instead chose to remain with the opposition. In a season already marked by party realignments, that is clearly an attempt to push back against the impression that the PDP is shrinking into irrelevance.
But this is where the story requires care. The PDP number is not emerging from a stable, universally recognised national leadership. Punch noted that the Turaki-led National Working Committee is still awaiting the judgment of the Supreme Court after both the high court and the appellate court voided the November 15 and 16, 2025 convention in Ibadan that produced that factional leadership. That means the 4.2 million figure is politically significant, but it also sits inside a contested structure. In plain terms, the membership claim may be impressive, but the authority behind it is still under legal and political scrutiny.
Even so, the data released by the faction gives a glimpse into how it wants to frame its survival story. According to Punch, the faction said the average registration stood at 24 members per polling unit and 484 members across each of the 8,809 wards in the 774 local government areas. It also said male members numbered 2,336,069 while female members stood at 1,928,606. On age distribution, the faction claimed that those aged 18 to 40 made up 40.3 per cent of the total, those between 41 and 60 accounted for 30.7 per cent, and those aged 61 and above made up 28.9 per cent.
Regionally, the same factional figures said the South West led with 953,954 members, followed by the South South with 917,652 and the North Central with 757,502. The North West was said to have 754,935, the North East 646,305, and the South East 234,327. Punch also reported that Kaduna posted the highest state total with 408,915 registrations, followed by Edo with 378,033, Oyo with 368,204, Ogun with 316,311, and Kano with 275,786. Those figures are politically useful because they allow the faction to tell a national story, not just a regional one.
Still, the APC may point to a different kind of institutional advantage. The return of APC e-registration comes just days after the Independent National Electoral Commission adjusted the timeline for political parties to submit their membership registers ahead of 2027. Punch reported on March 27 that INEC extended the deadline for submission from April 21 to May 10, 2026, after concerns were raised by political parties about the earlier schedule. The commission also said parties are free to hold primaries between April 23 and May 30, 2026, but must submit their membership registers no later than 21 days before their primaries, in line with Section 77(4) of the Electoral Act 2026.
That timetable gives fresh context to APC e-registration. The exercise is resuming not in a vacuum, but within a tight electoral calendar shaped by law and INEC procedure. Any party that wants to field candidates without legal complications must have a credible register, a defensible internal process, and a clear record of who belongs to it. So while critics may dismiss APC e-registration as party routine, the truth is that it could become one of the building blocks of candidate selection, convention control, and litigation-proof preparation for 2027.
The broader story here is about competing narratives of strength. For the APC, APC e-registration is a language of order, verification, and institutional readiness. For the PDP faction, the 4.2 million claim is a language of endurance, loyalty, and grassroots defiance. Both messages are aimed at the same audience: party faithful, potential defectors, financiers, local power brokers, and ordinary voters watching which platform looks more prepared to fight and survive the next election cycle.
There is also a subtle psychological contest in play. The APC wants to appear like the organised incumbent with a functioning machine. The PDP faction wants to show that it still has numbers, despite its fractures. In that sense, APC e-registration is not just about data entry, and the PDP’s 4.2 million figure is not just a spreadsheet boast. They are rival attempts to frame the early 2027 conversation. One says, “We are structured.” The other says, “We are still alive.”
For observers of Nigerian politics, the lesson is simple. Early election signals rarely come only from rallies or endorsements. Sometimes they come from quieter moves like database building, register submission, and membership validation. The resumption of APC e-registration and the PDP faction’s membership claim show that the political class is already shifting from rhetoric to machinery. And in Nigerian politics, machinery often matters as much as message.
Whether the PDP faction’s 4.2 million figure will stand up to deeper scrutiny is another question. Whether APC e-registration will significantly widen the ruling party’s advantage is also not yet settled. But what is already clear is that the long road to 2027 is no longer beginning quietly. It has already entered the stage of numbers, systems, and legal deadlines, where parties start building the foundations of the battles to come.
For now, the contrast is striking. One party is reopening a nationwide digital registration mechanism. Another faction is presenting a large digital membership count as proof of life. Between them lies the real story of this moment: Nigerian politics is moving steadily toward 2027, and the struggle for legitimacy has already begun.
https://punchng.com/2027-apc-resumes-e-registration-pdp-faction-claims-4-2m-members/
