Adopting the Election Petition Model as a Means of Fast Tracking Justice Delivery in the Regular Court System in Nigeria: Problems and Prospects

Abstract

It is a truism that sound and credible elections are a sine qua non for sustainable democracy. The citizens in a society do not only desire a credible system for the selection of their leaders, but also seek functional and unbiased institutional processes to settle election matters. Consequently, election petition remains a viable and reorganized alternative open to any person or party dissatisfied with the conduct of an election to ventilate his or her grievances. Over the years, litigants/petitioners have continued to patronize the election petition tribunals/courts with minimal or no success as most of the petitions ended up being thrown out for non-compliance with the applicable electoral legislations or technicalities. Consequently, this paper analyses the current election petition model in Nigeria with a view to highlighting practices that may be adapted to the regular court process to improve speedy dispensation of justice. The paper adopts a doctrinal methodology which undertakes a comparative study of Nigeria and other relevant foreign jurisdictions. The paper analyses the procedural and institutional aspects of the election petition system viz-a-viz the court system in Nigeria and further examines the practice in other foreign jurisdictions with an attempt to identify norms and practices that can be adopted to strengthen the election petition model in Nigeria.