“A Very Anomalous Situation”: Two Ex-Presidents Warn That Nigeria’s Courts Have Become the New Polling Booths

ValidViewNetwork gathered that former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan have sounded the alarm over Nigeria’s election litigation culture, warning that courts have increasingly become arbiters of political power, effectively determining election winners rather than resolving genuine disputes.

Speaking at the 2026 Goodluck Jonathan Foundation Democracy Dialogue in Bauchi, the two former leaders called for urgent democratic reforms ahead of the 2027 general elections, scheduled for January and February.Jonathan: “The Nigerian Situation Is Extremely Different”Jonathan was particularly forthright in condemning Nigeria’s culture of post-election litigation.

“The Nigerian situation is extremely different from most other African countries. The kind of election litigation we experience here is uncommon. I can describe the Nigerian situation as a very anomalous one,” he said.

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He argued that where an election is fundamentally compromised, the democratic remedy should ordinarily be a fresh poll, not a judicial declaration that substitutes the judgment of a handful of judges for the votes of millions.

Jonathan also lamented the extent to which courts had intruded into political parties’ affairs, noting that “courts now determine who becomes a party’s candidate and, in some cases, which political party should be recognised” .

Obasanjo: “If You Beat Me by One Vote, You Take It All”

Obasanjo questioned the logic of millions of Nigerians voting in an election only for a five-member judicial panel to determine the eventual winner.

In governorship disputes, the absurdity becomes even more glaring when none of the judges may even come from the state whose political future they are deciding.

He also highlighted Nigeria’s defective winner-takes-all political culture.

“When you talk about loyal opposition in an African setting, opposition means enemy. Then do you have a loyal enemy? So, what do you do with your enemy? You crush him and destroy him, and that is what we have,” he observed.”If you beat me by one vote, then you take it all and whatever I have does not matter,” Obasanjo said, describing the culture as “poisonous to democracy” .

A Pattern of Judicial Intervention

ValidViewNetwork notes that the Supreme Court’s declaration of Hope Uzodimma as governor of Imo State in 2020 remains one of the most controversial examples of judicial intervention in an election.

Likewise, judicial pronouncements surrounding the eligibility of Senate President Godswill Akpabio and his predecessor, Ahmed Lawan, in the 2023 elections generated considerable controversy.