Why the 2026 FCT Area Council Election is More Than Just a Local Contest

On 21 February 2026, INEC will hold polls to fill all six Area Council chairperson positions and councillorship seats in the Federal Capital Territory. These Area Council elections are the only local government polls conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), because the FCT has no state government or state electoral commission. In effect, residents of Abuja will vote under rules more typical of a federal contest than a municipal one. INEC’s official notice confirms this arrangement, noting that the Commission will conduct elections in the six Area Councils of the Federal Capital Territory on that date. This exceptional setup underscores why some legislators are even pushing to extend INEC’s purview: a 2025 bill (HB1649) in Nigeria’s National Assembly proposes amending the constitution so that all local government elections nationwide would be run by INEC. Supporters argue this would curb political interference by governors and create uniform electoral standards, while critics warn it risks overloading INEC and eroding state autonomy. For now, however, the FCT alone stands apart, making its Area Council vote a kind of experiment in directly administered local democracy.

A Crucial Test for 2027

The timing of the FCT elections – exactly one year before the 2027 national elections makes them especially significant. It serves as a rehearsal for next year’s general polls, a chance for parties to mobilise their base and gauge grassroots strength. The incumbent All Progressives Congress (APC), in particular, has treated the Area Council contests as a top priority. After losing both the FCT presidential vote and key legislative seats in 2023, the APC leadership is eager to regain its footing in Abuja. In the 2023 presidential election, Labour Party candidate Peter Obi won the FCT decisively – securing about 59% of the vote to defeat Bola Tinubu of the APC, who managed only 19%. In parliamentary races, the Labour Party swept the lone Senate seat and one of two House seats, leaving the APC with just one House seat. In short, the ruling party lost ground in Abuja to the Labour Party in 2023, a shift some journalists called a warning sign for the APC.

The high stakes are reflected in top-level rhetoric. FCT Minister Nyesom Wike (a former governor of Rivers State) has publicly tied the outcome of the council elections to support for President Tinubu’s agenda. At a public event in Abuja, Wike declared that he would only support whoever supports President Tinubu’s reelection in the upcoming FCT Area Council Polls, vowing to block candidates who do not back the president. This pledge made with apparent pride in siding with the president underscores how the FCT vote is seen as a loyalty test for the ruling party and the capacity of the FCT Minister. Meanwhile, the Labour Party and other opposition groups are hoping to consolidate their 2023 gains. In practical terms, the APC has launched an intensive campaign effort: it inaugurated a national campaign council to coordinate outreach in all six councils, with its national chairperson calling the election more than a local election – a strategic political exercise to prepare for 2027. That leadership team is explicitly charged with helping the APC recover lost ground and reassert dominance in Abuja.

A further reason the FCT election carries outsized national interest is the 2023 post-election litigation over Abuja’s electoral weight. Opposition leaders had argued that President Tinubu did not meet the 25% vote requirement in Abuja, but the courts ultimately held that Abuja was merely one state among 37 for these purposes. The Supreme Court effectively affirmed that Abuja must be treated like any other state in the presidential threshold formula. In practical terms, this means winning the FCT in itself does not automatically guarantee the presidency – it only counts as one constituency toward the two-thirds of states rule. Despite the Supreme Court ruling, the upshot is that the FCT has become a symbolically elevated battleground – politicians cannot ignore it as a strong showing in Abuja is regarded as a morale boost and a measure of national appeal.

Apathy and Ambiguity

Despite the high-profile campaigns, voter engagement in FCT area council elections has traditionally been extremely low. For example, in the 2019 Abuja council elections, only about 19.7% of registered voters in Bwari went to the polls, and a mere 11.5% in the central AMAC district. In 2022, the problem persisted: an election monitoring report found turnout was abysmally poor, with only about 9% of voters coming out to vote. Many new polling units saw almost no voters at all. 

One major reason for the perceived apathy of the FCT voting population is the confusion over responsibility. Abuja residents live within a multi-layered governance structure. Because the President resides in the FCT, it often appears as though he directly governs the territory. Meanwhile, many public services are coordinated by the FCT Minister, who is appointed by the President. Within these overlapping layers of authority, the Area Councils are often perceived merely as revenue collection departments of the FCT Administration. Consequently, many residents hold the FCT Administration or even the Presidency responsible for functions such as market regulation, waste collection, and street naming, all of which fall within the statutory responsibilities of the Area Councils. This perception makes Area Council elections seem distant or inconsequential, and many Abuja residents either do not clearly understand the powers at stake or assume that citywide problems lie beyond the authority of the councils.

Administratively, even those who do care sometimes face hurdles. By law, voters in Nigeria must cast their ballots at the exact polling units where they registered unless they apply for a transfer. With Abuja’s enormous in-migration, many adult residents originally registered elsewhere in Nigeria have not transferred their registration to the FCT. Since INEC will not conduct transfers on election day, a dislocated worker or student without a transferred Permanent Voter’s Card (PVC) can only watch as a spectator. 

Urban-Rural Divide and Indigenous Mobilisation

The FCT election highlights a dichotomy between Abuja’s cosmopolitan core and its more traditional outskirts. The Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC) – essentially the capital city is a densely populated, diverse district where residents come from all corners of Nigeria. In AMAC and similar urban wards, campaign activity has been relatively moderate so far, with parties relying more on posters and media than door-to-door contact.  Many people do not even have a sense that an election is coming up, nor do they feel attached to it. However, the local governments in rural areas feel more engaged and traditional leaders and local networks in the rural area councils are being actively courted by candidates, giving those voters a stronger sense of participating in the process.

This rural engagement reflects deeper issues of identity and marginalisation. Indigenous FCT communities (often called the Abua, who are chiefly of the Gbagyi group) have long felt sidelined by Abuja’s growth. In January 2026, Abuja’s indigenes publicly presented a Charter of Demands on the city’s 50th anniversary, calling for greater political inclusion. They urged that the Area Councils be reclassified as full Local Government Areas and even proposed creating three senatorial districts in the FCT to end their chronic under-representation. Their leaders accuse successive governments of systematic dispossession, pointing to the frequent demolition of ancestral villages around Abuja, and warn that development in the FCT continues to occur at the expense of its first inhabitants. In this light, the 2026 councils’ election takes on symbolic weight: it is one of the few elections in which Abuja’s original citizens can elect representatives who speak directly to their rural interests and secure their land rights.  

The February 2026 FCT Area Council elections may seem small, but in reality, they carry many unique stakes. The way these elections are conducted and decided will touch on national questions of electoral reform, test the ruling party’s strength one year out from a general vote, and perhaps even highlight the gulf between the capital’s urban newcomers and its rural indigenes. 

Dengiyefa Angalapu is a Research Analyst, Centre for Democracy and Development