Rising Incidence of Post-Electoral Dispute in Nigeria: Implications for its Democracy

Abstract

Since Nigeria’s return to democratic rule in 1999, the country has continued to witness high rates of election petitions filed at election petitions tribunals across the country after each election period, in a bid to resolve electoral disputes. All the elections the country has conducted - 2003, 2011, 2015 as well as the most recent 2019 general elections, have produced large numbers of post-election petitions. In the opinion of this study, the major factor responsible for this unfavorable situation is the weakness of the country’s electoral process and institutions, which persistently paves the way for massive irregularities that render elections results incredible and unacceptable, thereby leading to disputes and filing of petitions at tribunals by aggrieved candidates and their political parties. The study argues that the prevailing high incidence of election petitions being witnessed in Nigeria in the Fourth Republic is unwholesome and inimical to the country’s democratic practice. In view of this, the study emphasizes that Nigeria needs to take urgent necessary measures to address the situation. Accordingly, the study suggests that Nigeria should strengthen her electoral process and institutions to attain highly credible, transparent, free and fair and acceptable elections in future times. This, in the views of the study, will help to reduce the spate of elections-related petitions to the barest minimum and avert the negative effects of the phenomenon on the country’s democracy. The study adopts the documentary methods of data collection and data analysis which enabled adequate achievement of the objective of the study.