Nightmare on Zambezi Crescent

In the movie A Nightmare on Elm Street, Freddy Krueger doesn’t kill you in the waking world. He waits until you sleep, until your defences are down, and then he comes for you in your dreams. The victims think they are safe because they are awake. They are wrong. The nightmare follows them.

The address is Plot 436 Zambezi Crescent, Maitama District, Abuja . That is where INEC headquarters sits, a quiet street name that sounds like a river but flows with something far more turbulent. Last weekend, INEC released its final list of candidates for the 2027 general elections, and for many prominent aspirants, the nightmare began not in their sleep but in their waking hours, staring at a list that did not contain their names.

This is the plot twist nobody scripted. In the movie, Freddy’s victims are teenagers who have done nothing wrong except exist in a town that buried its secrets. In Nigeria’s version, the victims are politicians who submitted their names, paid their dues, won their primaries—and then watched as the list came out with their names missing. Professor Isa Ali Pantami, the former Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, won a court-ordered rerun of the PDP governorship primary in Gombe State on September 29. His name is not on the list. Ladi Adebutu, the PDP’s governorship candidate in Ogun State, is absent, along with his running mate. Aminu Gwarzo, the NDC candidate in Kano, and his running mate Mustapha Kwankwaso—yes, that Kwankwaso’s son—are also missing. The NDC’s Danjuma La’ah in Kaduna, the SDP’s Prof. Sebastine Hon in Benue, the ADC’s Nkoyo Toyo in Cross River—all gone.

The official explanation is not Freddy Krueger, but something almost as terrifying: a Supreme Court judgment. On September 24, 2026, the apex court upheld Sections 77(5)-(7) of the Electoral Act, 2026, which require political parties to submit their membership registers to INEC before conducting primaries, and to use only registered members for those primaries. The court held that parties that failed to comply were “ineligible to sponsor candidates”. INEC, dutifully, applied the judgment when finalising the governorship list. The presidential and National Assembly lists, published on September 12, predated the ruling by 13 days, so they were spared.

Now, here is where the nightmare deepens. INEC has given affected parties until October 24 to notify it of alleged errors, a 14-day window under Section 32(2) of the Electoral Act. But Shehu Sani, the former senator who has seen enough political nightmares to write a horror anthology, has advised candidates to stop wasting money on lawyers. “Affected candidates should not waste their money, time and energy fighting a lost battle,” he said. “Four years will come and go; let them strategise for the future” .

Four years. That is the real horror. In the movie, Freddy’s victims could not escape because the nightmare was tied to their town’s history. In Nigeria, the nightmare is tied to the electoral architecture itself. The Supreme Court has spoken. INEC has obeyed. And the politicians who were dreaming of governorship mansions in Gombe, Ogun, Kano, and Kaduna have woken up to a cold reality: the rules changed while they were asleep.

But Freddy Krueger was not invincible. He could be fought. He could be defeated. The question is whether Nigeria’s political class has the courage to fight, or whether they will simply accept the nightmare as the natural order of things.

The deeper horror is not the omissions themselves. It is what they reveal about the state of our electoral system. If a Supreme Court judgment can retroactively disqualify candidates who believed they had followed the rules, what does that say about the rules themselves? If INEC can publish a list and then defend its exclusions by citing a court ruling that came after some lists were already published, what does that say about the commission’s planning? If political parties cannot even manage their membership registers—the most basic requirement of a democratic system—what does that say about the parties themselves?

The rawanin buzu metaphor from my last piece comes to mind. The Tuareg’s headdress only falls when the head is on the ground. For many of these candidates, the head is on the ground. But the question is whether they will pick up the turban and fight, or whether they will lie there in the dust, accepting the nightmare as fate.

There is another parallel from the movie that is worth considering. Freddy Krueger was a child killer who was released on a technicality. The parents of Elm Street, tired of the legal system’s failures, took justice into their own hands and burned him alive. The nightmare began because the system failed. Nigeria’s electoral nightmare is beginning because the system—the courts, the parties, the commission—has failed in its own way. The difference is that in the movie, the parents fought back. In Nigeria, the parents are still arguing about who is to blame.

INEC has assured Nigerians of its “commitment to transparency, the rule of law and the credibility of the electoral process”. That is the kind of statement that sounds reassuring until you remember that the credibility of the process is precisely what is being questioned. The commission is caught in a bind: it must obey the Supreme Court, but it must also ensure that legitimate candidates are not disenfranchised. It has given until October 24 for parties to file their complaints. After that, the nightmare may truly begin.

The presidential election is on January 16, 2027. The governorship election is on February 6. That is less than four months away. The candidates who are missing from the list have less than two weeks to make their case. If they fail, their names will not be on the ballot. Their supporters will have no one to vote for. And the nightmare will not end when they wake up, because for them, there will be no waking up.

Freddy Krueger was defeated because the survivors refused to accept the nightmare as reality. They fought back, and they won. Nigeria’s political class must decide whether it will do the same. The alternative is to keep sleeping, and to let the nightmare on Zambezi Crescent consumes us all.