Nigerian Election Petitions Bullets, Bribes & Ballots
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About the project

A public record of Nigeria's election petitions.

In Nigeria, elections do not end at the polling units. Increasingly, they are settled in court. This site collects two decades of those cases in one place, so they can be read, compared, and understood.

Updated each cycle 36 states and the FCT A product of the Nigerian Elections Research Project An Archivi.ng Fellowship project

Why this exists

In Nigeria, court challenges have become a routine feature of contested elections — and the courtroom has become as decisive as the ballot box. The election petition tribunals and the appellate courts that review their decisions have become the final arbiters of who governs.

Yet the record of these decisions is hard to reach. Judgments are scattered across tribunals and cycles. Certified copies are costly and difficult to obtain, and the reasoning inside them is written for election lawyers, not the general public.

This project gathers that record and makes it legible and accessible, explaining both the result and the reasoning.

What's inside

Every general election organised by INEC is covered, across every elective office from the governorship to the State House of Assembly. The dashboard presents all of this information as eight linked views.

Election cyclesEach general election cycle, added once its petitions conclude.
OfficesGovernorship, Senate, House of Representatives, and State House of Assembly seats.
GeographyAll 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, grouped by the six geopolitical zones.
The Electoral Act trackerKey provisions of the Electoral Act, compared across the 2002, 2006, 2010, 2022, and 2026 versions.
Within each coded caseGrounds pleaded, the outcome, the length of judgment, and the panel that sat.
The project's illustrations are inspired by the block-print designs of adire, the Yoruba textile tradition, in the national colours, green and white.

Who it's for

It is built to be useful at several levels.

  • Newsrooms, for a quick, citable read on how a disputed seat was resolved and how it compares with past cycles.
  • Researchers, for a structured, coded view of two decades of petition litigation.
  • The legal community, for a view of the litigation landscape and the statute as it changed.
  • The public, for a plain way to see what happened after the votes were counted.

About the data

The project does not take a position on the merits of any petition. It presents what the record shows. How the data was compiled and coded is set out in the methodology.

For the people behind the project, see the team. For questions or corrections, see the contact page.