An Accountability Report on the 2025 Anambra State governorship election has revealed that none of the five major candidates published a costed or comprehensive manifesto.
The report detailing candidates of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), All Progressives Congress (APC), All Democratic Congress (ADC), Labour Party (LP) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said most of the manifestos were mere rhetoric with no level of feasibility and implementation detail of their plans.
The Adehun Pre-election Accountability Report on the Anambra State Governorship, released by the Policy Accountability Lab, revealed that Governor Chukwuma Soludo of APGA was leading with a stronger articulation of participatory and inclusive governance, followed by John Nwosu of ADC and Nicholas Ukachukwu of APC, reflecting moderate issue-based engagements.
George Moghalu (LP) and Jude Ezenwafor (PDP) were reportedly ranked lowest due to limited documentation of their commitment.
The Executive Director of the Paradigm Leadership Support Initiative (PLSI), Olusegun Elemo, while presenting the report’s findings to stakeholders at the breakout session of the Nigeria Accountability Summit, said, “Candidates are just making promises, but the implementation details of those promises are low.”
He stated that the Adehun framework targeted bridging Nigeria’s enduring “Promise–Policy Gap” by tracking how campaign commitments align with governance priorities and citizens’ expectations.
Elemo further explained that the new Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered platform was introduced to help voters compare political candidates based on their policy commitments and performance metrics.
The report, however, recommended that political parties publish costed, accessible manifestos in line with state and national development plans, and adopt participatory policy design and evidence-based campaign planning.
It also called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to require manifesto submission and public disclosure for all candidates as well as incorporate pre-election accountability metrics into voter education programmes.
Charging citizens to demand evidence-backed promises and transparency on implementation strategies, the report urged development partners to invest in civic technology platforms that monitor policy delivery.
