Elections decide who leads. But in Nigeria, the courts often decide months later.

On paper, Nigeria runs elections every four years to elect leaders who reflect the will of the people. In reality, our courts often have the final say, months after those leaders have been sworn in. Yes, seeking legal redress is a constitutional right. It provides a peaceful path for aggrieved candidates to resolve disputes. But over the years, a disturbing pattern has emerged: the jurisprudence of the court declaring the winner is one of the factors that influences the high influx of petitions to the court and undermines public trust, burdens the judiciary, and increases the pressure, attacks and the potential manipulation and capture of the judiciary by influential figures. These highlight the delicate balance that must be maintained when involving the judiciary to adjudicate on politically sensitive matters, especially election-related, and it acts as the final arbiter of the elections.

Comparison of Election Petition with Previous Election Years

In the lead-up to the 2023 general elections, Nigeria’s judiciary was already under immense pressure. Between April and June 2022, political parties conducted their primaries, which resulted in 1,893 pre-election cases. These disputes ranged from the legality of candidate nominations to internal party conflicts. The burden did not stop there. Over 815 of these cases were appealed to the Court of Appeal, and more than 400 reached the Supreme Court. According to Sections 29(5) and 84(14) of the Electoral Act 2022, only the Federal High Court has jurisdiction over these pre-election matters. However, this provision created a logjam. With just 77 judges on the Federal High Court bench and an infrastructure deficit, meeting the 180-day statutory window for resolving all 1,893 pre-election cases became a herculean task. To prioritise these cases, regular judicial proceedings were suspended, leaving thousands of other litigants in limbo.

After the general elections, 1,209 post-election petitions were filed across Nigeria. To respond, 338 judges were deployed to over 98 election petition tribunal panels across the 36 states and the FCT. In contrast, 78 panels were set up for the 2019 elections with about 250 judges. These judges were drawn from various courts—the State High Courts, Federal High Courts, National Industrial Courts, and other courts of coordinate jurisdiction. When judges leave their stations to serve in election tribunals, every case pending in their courts is put on hold. There is rarely any transition mechanism to reassign these cases. If each of the 338 tribunal-assigned judges had a docket of just 200 cases, that amounts to 67,600 stalled cases. These are not just commercial disputes. They include criminal trials, human rights cases, and employment matters, some of which involve people in detention awaiting trial. The consequence is the freezing of justice for thousands of Nigerians who are not even connected to the elections.

The Long Road to Justice and Power

Post-election litigation in Nigeria is not only voluminous but also slow. For presidential elections, petitions begin at the Court of Appeal and terminate at the Supreme Court, taking an average of 8 to 9 months. For governorship elections, the timeline stretches to 11 to 12 months, moving from the tribunal to the Court of Appeal and then to the Supreme Court. For legislative elections, cases end at the Court of Appeal and last 8 to 9 months on average. This means that for nearly two years, the court is busy with election matters, and for nearly a year, elected officials operate under legal uncertainty. Governance becomes reactive, focused on legal survival rather than public service. In many cases, incumbents use state resources to fund legal defences, further tilting the balance of fairness. KDI documented several cases during the 2023 election cycle where state governments (Kimpact Development Initiative, 2024):

• Allocated over 200 million Naira in public funds to pay lawyers defending election petitions.
• Provided personal security aides to guard the tribunal premises.
• Offered government buildings to tribunal panels as court venues due to insecurity, creating the appearance of influence.

These actions not only raise questions about fairness but also compromise judicial independence. While courts battle through thousands of petitions, the legitimacy of elections remains in question. Elected officials struggle to govern confidently. Citizens begin to doubt whether their votes matter. Opposition parties remain in campaign mode, and the broader public is left suspended in uncertainty. Democracy, in this state of delay, becomes a fragmented illusion. By the time a court decides on a winner, the political damage is often done. A governor may have ruled for a year before being sacked. A legislature may have passed laws that will outlive its membership. This retroactive form of justice creates confusion, resentment, and weakens the institutional credibility of both the judiciary and the electoral system.

The Case for Reform: Learning from Kenya and Others

Nigeria is not the only country with post-election litigation challenges. However, some countries have acted swiftly to reform their systems. Kenya, for instance, now allows its Supreme Court to serve as the court of first instance for presidential election petitions. This model reduces the layers of appeals and ensures decisions are delivered within a narrow window, allowing the country to move on. This streamlined approach reduces uncertainty, saves time, conserves judicial resources, and avoids the constitutional and political tensions that often accompany prolonged disputes. Another solution may be to establishment of specialised law courts in the country as the antidote for this judicial difficulty. There are schools of thought that vehemently negate this- they strongly argue that elections are seasonal, and they come and go. According to this school of thought, the special court may not have so much to do after election petitions are resolved within the first 12 months. As someone who understood this process, the judges appointed to empanel these special courts of law will have their hands full around the calendar before another election cycle. Taking into consideration the number of States going into off-cycle elections due to judgments of law courts, specialised courts may get busy with election petitions being a direct consequence of these off-cycle elections. Also, from party primaries, which amount to party members rushing off to the law courts to seek redress, to post-election disputes, to criminal offences committed during elections, the Special Court can be given the jurisdiction to hear matters of electoral offence. This in itself will aid the speedy hearing of electoral offences.

Immediate Fix and What Needs to Change

The following constitutional and legal amendments to correct this chronic democratic ailment are important:

• Presidential Petitions: Add a subsection to Section 232(1) of the Constitution granting the Supreme Court original and final jurisdiction over presidential election petitions. Delete Section 233(e)(i)(ii)(iii) to eliminate further appeals.
• Governorship Petitions: Amend Section 239(1) so that the Court of Appeal can serve as the court of first instance for governorship elections. Delete Section 246(c) to remove additional layers of appeal.
• Legislative Petitions: Amend Section 285(2) and 285(3) so that they only apply to National and State Assembly petitions.
• Timeframe and Filing Conditions:
• Reduce the days for hearing post-election cases to 50 days.
• Amend Sections 76(2), 116(2), 178(2), and 132(2) to ensure elections are scheduled between 270 and 90 days before the end of tenure.
• Limit eligibility to file a post-election petition to only candidates or parties who secure at least 20 per cent of the total votes cast.

Why It Matters

Delaying post-election justice until after inauguration has far-reaching consequences. It delays justice, undermines trust in democratic institutions, overburdens the judiciary, and disrupts governance. More importantly, it sends the message that elections are not final acts of the people’s will, but provisional exercises pending court approval. Justice must be timely. Power must derive from transparent and undisputed mandates. And Nigeria must stop pretending that election petitions resolved a year after inauguration uphold the spirit of democracy. We cannot continue like this. If we are serious about electoral credibility, judicial independence, and good governance, then post-election disputes must be resolved before the winners take office.