By Timileyin Okunlola 

Every election night ends the same way — a winner is declared, results are announced, and for many Nigerians, that’s where the story ends. However, for a significant number of contestants, that’s actually where a different process begins: the legal battle of affirming who occupies an office legitimately.

As often anticipated, elections do not come with a unanimous winner. Fellow contestants and political parties often bring forth reasons why they feel cheated and slighted. To address this, many often resort to utilizing the election tribunal route to challenge the results.

Elections can be challenged based on the following grounds:

• An individual who, at the time of the election, was not qualified to contest.
• The election was invalid by reason of corrupt practices or noncompliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act.
• The respondent was not duly elected by majority of lawful votes cast at the election.

What Are Election Tribunals?

Election Tribunals are special courts set up specifically to hear disputes arising from elections. They exist separately from the regular court system because election disputes are, by nature, urgent and need to be resolved quickly, before the affected office holder’s term runs out or public trust erodes further.

In Nigeria, there are different tribunals depending on the office being contested. Notably among these are:

• The National Assembly Election Tribunal – This hears disputes involving Senate and House of Representatives seats.
• The Governorship and Legislative Houses Election Tribunal – This hears disputes involving governors and state assembly members.
• For presidential elections, petitions skip the tribunal stage entirely and go straight to the Court of Appeal, which serves as the Presidential Election Petition Court.

From these tribunals, depending on the office in question, a case can proceed on appeal — first to the Court of Appeal, and in governorship and presidential matters, ultimately to the Supreme Court.

The Court of Appeal is vested with the power to hear appeals from election tribunals in respect of National and State Houses of Assembly Election Petitions, and its decision is final in that regard. Petitions arising from governorship elections, however, enjoy two levels of appeal: first at the Court of Appeal, and finally at the Supreme Court of Nigeria.

These tribunals are composed of three members: a chairman, who must be a Judge of the High Court, and two other members appointed from the ranks of Judges of the High Court, Kadis of the Sharia Court of Appeal, Judges of the Customary Court of Appeal, or other members of the judiciary not below the rank of Chief Magistrate.

Read also: Down the Rabbit Hole: Why Nigeria’s Electoral Offenders Keep Walking Free

Why Do Courts and Tribunals Matter for Electoral Integrity?

An election isn’t just about the act of voting,  it’s also about whether the outcome of the exercise can be trusted. Courts and tribunals exist to answer one core question when that trust is challenged: was this election conducted lawfully, and does the result reflect the genuine will of the people?

Without this layer of oversight, disputed elections would have nowhere to go but the streets, which can lead to unrest and anarchy. Tribunals give aggrieved parties — and by extension, the public — a lawful channel to seek redress, instead of resorting to violence or simply accepting outcomes they believe were manipulated, which would otherwise give room for resentment.

When tribunals function properly, every candidate is treated fairly, and the electoral process remains just and properly defined.

Tribunals Over the Years…

Nigeria’s recent election cycles offer a clear picture of how active and consequential this process can be. Here are some of the most recent examples.

In July 2026, the Court of Appeal struck down key sections of the Electoral Act 2026 — Sections 77(5), 77(6), 77(7), and 84(2) — in a case brought by the Zenith Party against INEC. The court held that these provisions, which gave INEC significant control over political parties’ membership registers and internal primaries, were inconsistent with the constitutional powers granted to parties to determine their own candidates. Section 84(2), which had limited candidate nomination to only direct primaries or consensus, was also struck down for amounting to excessive interference in parties’ internal affairs. The ruling, delivered just months ahead of the 2027 general elections, restores greater discretion to political parties in how they select their candidates.

In Ekiti State, the tribunal dismissed a petition filed by a former governor challenging the declared winner of the 2022 governorship election, ruling that the petitioner had not presented enough witnesses to prove his claims of malpractice. In Edo State, the tribunal also upheld the declared winner of the 2024 governorship election after a lengthy hearing, prompting the losing party to proceed to the Court of Appeal. A similar outcome played out in Ondo State, where the tribunal upheld the sitting governor’s election after an eight-hour judgment dismissing multiple petitions from opposing parties.

Perhaps the most striking recent example comes from Osun State, where the tribunal initially overturned the declared governor’s victory — only for the Court of Appeal to restore his mandate, a decision the Supreme Court later affirmed. Since Nigeria’s return to democratic rule in 1999, only a handful of states have seen a sitting governor actually removed through a successful post-election petition, which shows just how high the bar is, and how significant it is on the rare occasions it happens.

These cases illustrate something important: tribunals don’t just rubber-stamp results, neither do they overturn them lightly. They work primarily with the evidence presented before them and do not deny either party a fair hearing.

What’s the Challenge?

For all their importance, election tribunals operate under significant pressure. Petitions must typically be resolved within tight statutory timelines, which can strain the ability to thoroughly examine complex allegations involving large volumes of evidence. Gathering credible, admissible evidence, especially forensic evidence, can be difficult in the chaotic aftermath of an election. And because these cases often carry immense political weight, tribunal decisions are frequently met with public skepticism, regardless of the outcome.

There’s also the matter of timing. Petitions can take months to resolve, sometimes stretching well into an official’s term — raising uncomfortable questions about what justice actually looks like when a wrongfully declared winner has already been governing for months, or even years, by the time a final verdict is reached.

Why This Matters

It’s easy to see tribunal proceedings as something that only concerns politicians and their legal teams. But every ruling that comes out of an election tribunal sends a message about how seriously the system takes citizens’ votes.

When tribunals uphold results that were genuinely free and fair, they validate the process you participated in. When they overturn results that were not, they protect your voice from being drowned out by manipulation. Either way, the existence of a credible, functioning tribunal system is part of what makes your vote worth casting in the first place.

Elections don’t end when the results are announced. For many, that’s just the beginning of the process meant to hold those results accountable to the truth. Understanding how that process works is part of understanding your own power as a voter.

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