The Supreme Court's July 10, 2025 judgment dismissing Asue Ighodalo's appeal against Monday Okpebholo represents far more than a single electoral dispute—it epitomizes a judicial system that has perfected the art of denying substantive justice through procedural technicality. By unanimously rejecting the PDP's challenge to the Edo State governorship election, the Court perpetuated a pattern where 88.9% of election petitions fail at tribunal level, not because elections are conducted flawlessly, but because the evidentiary standards have become virtually impossible to meet. This decision, following the Court's requirement that petitioners physically produce and demonstrate each contested BVAS machine in court, exemplifies how Nigeria's highest court has transformed from guardian of democracy into gatekeeper of an electoral status quo that increasingly alienates citizens from their democratic institutions.
The court's impossible evidence standards
The Supreme Court's handling of evidence in the Ighodalo case reveals a judicial philosophy divorced from electoral reality. Despite the PDP producing 148 BVAS machines from 133 disputed polling units, the Court dismissed this evidence because the machines were "dumped on the tribunal without any competent witness" and were not switched on during proceedings to demonstrate over-voting claims. This requirement—that petitioners must physically transport, present, and operate each electronic device in court—creates an absurd standard that no petitioner could reasonably meet when challenging results across hundreds of polling units.
Justice Mohammed Garba's lead judgment emphasized that "the Appellant did not satisfactorily discharge the burden of proof placed on him by the law," but this statement obscures the deeper issue: the law itself, as interpreted by Nigerian courts, has created burden of proof requirements that effectively immunize electoral malpractice from judicial scrutiny. The Court's insistence on polling unit agents testifying about specific irregularities at their assigned units ignores the practical reality that many agents face intimidation, lack resources to attend distant tribunals, or simply cannot be located months after elections.
The treatment of forensic evidence particularly highlights the Court's disconnect from modern electoral practices. When forensic expert Hitler Nwala testified that INEC had wiped BVAS data after the February 2023 presidential election, this raised serious questions about evidence preservation. Yet courts continue to demand physical production of devices whose data has been systematically deleted, creating a Catch-22 where evidence is simultaneously required and made unavailable by the very institution whose conduct is under scrutiny.
When precedent becomes pathology
The Edo judgment fits seamlessly into a jurisprudential pattern that has hardened into dogma. Since 1999, no presidential election has ever been overturned by the Supreme Court, and governorship election challenges face similarly insurmountable barriers. The Court's reliance on precedents like the 2023 Osun State case—which established that petitioners must produce individual BVAS machines for each contested polling unit—demonstrates how bad law begets worse law through mechanical application of precedent.
This judicial conservatism contrasts sharply with international best practices. The Council of Europe's 121 requirements for e-voting implementation emphasize transparency, verifiability, and mandatory audits of electronic results. Yet Nigerian courts reject electronic evidence unless accompanied by impossible physical demonstrations, treating 21st-century technology with 19th-century evidentiary rules.
The comparison becomes more damning when examining success rates. While electoral disputes in established democracies regularly result in recounts, investigations, and occasionally overturned results, Nigeria's 73.1% dismissal rate due to "failure to discharge burden of proof" suggests either Nigerian elections are uniquely fraud-free or the judicial system has erected barriers that protect malpractice rather than democracy.
Technology in the courtroom: A system failing to adapt
The Electoral Act 2022 mandated electronic voter accreditation and result transmission, recognizing technology's role in enhancing electoral integrity. Yet the Supreme Court's approach to BVAS evidence reveals a judiciary struggling to integrate digital reality into legal frameworks. The Court's requirement that BVAS machines be physically switched on in court to prove over-voting—rather than accepting forensic analysis of their data—exemplifies this disconnect.
BVAS captures biometric data, stores accreditation records, and transmits results electronically, creating multiple data points for verification. International standards for digital forensics emphasize data integrity, chain of custody documentation, and expert analysis. Nigerian courts, however, treat these sophisticated devices like simple mechanical tools that must be physically demonstrated, ignoring that their evidentiary value lies in the data they contain, not their physical operation.
The systematic deletion of BVAS data between elections compounds this problem. INEC's practice of wiping devices for reuse—confirmed in testimony but unchallenged by courts—destroys the very evidence the judiciary demands, creating a system where electoral accountability becomes structurally impossible.
The democracy deficit: When courts become barriers to justice
The implications of this judicial approach extend far beyond individual cases. Voter turnout has plummeted from 69.1% in 2003 to a historic low of 27.1% in 2023, with YIAGA Africa attributing this decline partly to loss of faith in electoral justice. When citizens perceive that courts will invariably uphold disputed results regardless of evidence, the incentive to participate in democracy diminishes.
Former governor Obaseki's response to the Edo judgment—"we leave our matter in God's hands to deliver divine justice"—captures the despair many Nigerians feel about earthly judicial remedies. When defeated candidates invoke divine intervention rather than expressing confidence in legal appeals, it signals a justice system that has lost legitimacy among those it ostensibly serves.
The pattern reinforces itself: strict technical requirements discourage legitimate challenges, leading to fewer petitions from genuinely aggrieved parties while encouraging only well-resourced candidates to attempt the expensive futility of electoral litigation. This creates a feedback loop where courts point to high petition failure rates as evidence of electoral integrity rather than recognizing their role in creating insurmountable barriers to justice.
Electoral Act 2022: Promise unfulfilled by judicial interpretation
The Electoral Act 2022 represented legislative recognition that Nigeria's electoral system needed modernization. Section 47(2) mandates technological devices for voter accreditation, while Section 60(5) requires electronic transmission of results. These provisions aimed to enhance transparency and reduce manipulation opportunities.
Yet the Supreme Court's interpretation has neutered these reforms. By maintaining impossible evidentiary standards for electronic data while accepting INEC's deletion of that same data, the judiciary has transformed statutory safeguards into procedural obstacles. The Act's requirement that over-voting be proven through comparison of votes cast against accredited voters becomes meaningless when courts reject the electronic records that would enable such comparison.
This interpretive failure reflects broader judicial resistance to electoral modernization. Rather than developing new frameworks for evaluating digital evidence, courts apply analog-era rules that treat electronic data with suspicion while demanding physical demonstrations better suited to 20th-century ballot boxes than 21st-century biometric systems.
Patterns of judicial deference
Examining Nigerian electoral litigation reveals disturbing patterns. The Supreme Court consistently demonstrates what can only be described as systematic deference to declared results, regardless of evidence quality or procedural irregularities. Since 1999, this deference has hardened into virtual immunity for announced outcomes.
The statistics are damning: 88.9% failure rate at tribunals, 79.4% at appeal courts, with most dismissals on technical grounds rather than substantive merit evaluation. When combined with the 21-day filing deadline and requirement for pre-trial deposit payments, the system appears designed to discourage challenges rather than facilitate justice.
International IDEA's assessment that Nigerian electoral litigation has become "excessively technical" understates the problem. The technicality isn't excessive—it's exclusionary, creating a system where procedural compliance matters more than electoral integrity.
The credibility crisis: Why Nigerians have lost faith
The public response to the Edo judgment reflects broader disillusionment with electoral justice. Ighodalo's statement that "what happened was not a contest but a robbery... now tragically validated by the highest court" resonates with many Nigerians who see courts as legitimizers of electoral malpractice rather than guardians against it.
This perception has measurable consequences. The EU Election Observation Mission identified "shortcomings in law and electoral administration" that "damaged trust in INEC," while the US Institute of Peace warns of "widespread public disappointment" threatening democratic consolidation. When international observers consistently question electoral integrity while domestic courts consistently uphold disputed results, the credibility gap becomes a chasm.
Civil society organizations like the Centre for Democracy and Development emphasize that judicial handling of election disputes directly impacts democratic legitimacy. Their research shows that excessive judicial technicality correlates with declining public trust, creating a vicious cycle where fewer citizens participate in elections they believe courts will validate regardless of conduct.
Learning from nothing: The failure to evolve
Perhaps most troubling is the judiciary's apparent inability to learn from repeated criticism. Despite decades of academic analysis, civil society advocacy, and international observation highlighting the same issues, Nigerian electoral jurisprudence remains frozen in formalistic interpretations that prioritize procedure over justice.
Other jurisdictions have adapted to electronic voting by developing specialized frameworks for digital evidence evaluation. Nigeria's courts, however, continue applying rules developed for paper ballots to biometric systems, creating absurdities like requiring physical demonstration of electronic devices whose evidentiary value lies in their data, not their operation.
This stagnation reflects institutional culture that views criticism as attack rather than opportunity for improvement. When the Centre for Public Policy Alternatives argues that the Supreme Court must "define itself ideologically as a democratic and accountable institution," it challenges fundamental assumptions about judicial role in electoral democracy. The Court's response—continued adherence to impossible standards—suggests an institution more concerned with maintaining authority than serving justice.
Reform or resignation: The path forward
The Edo judgment represents both culmination and crossroads. It culminates decades of jurisprudence that has progressively raised barriers to electoral justice while lowering public faith in democratic institutions. It also presents a crossroads: Nigeria can continue down this path toward democratic hollowing-out, or undertake fundamental reforms to align electoral justice with democratic aspirations.
Reform must begin with honest recognition that current standards serve neither justice nor democracy. The Electoral Act requires updating to address digital evidence realities. Courts need specialized training in electronic systems and forensic analysis. Most fundamentally, the burden of proof framework needs recalibration to recognize that when institutions control evidence, they cannot simultaneously benefit from its absence.
International partnerships offer models for reform. The EU's 25 recommendations for improving Nigerian electoral practice provide a roadmap, while organizations like International IDEA offer technical assistance for judicial modernization. However, reform requires political will to prioritize democratic integrity over incumbent protection—will that current beneficiaries of the system have little incentive to demonstrate.
Conclusion: A democracy in judicial chains
The Supreme Court's July 10, 2025 judgment in Ighodalo v. Okpebholo will be remembered not for its legal reasoning but for what it represents: a judicial system that has perfected the art of denying justice through technical precision. By maintaining impossible evidentiary standards while accepting institutional destruction of evidence, the Court has created a framework where electoral malpractice enjoys de facto immunity from judicial scrutiny.
The numbers tell the story: 88.9% petition failure rate, 27.1% voter turnout, zero presidential elections overturned since 1999. These aren't statistics—they're symptoms of a democracy being strangled by its own institutions. When courts designed to protect electoral integrity instead protect electoral outcomes, when technology meant to enhance transparency becomes a barrier to justice, when citizens invoke divine intervention because human institutions have failed them, democracy exists in name only.
The Edo judgment thus stands as both an end and a beginning: the end of any pretense that Nigerian electoral jurisprudence serves democratic accountability, and perhaps the beginning of recognition that without fundamental reform, Nigeria's democratic experiment risks judicial suffocation. The Court had an opportunity to demonstrate that justice matters more than technicality, that democracy requires genuine accountability, that electoral integrity deserves robust protection. Instead, it chose the familiar path of procedural dismissal, adding another brick to the wall between Nigerian citizens and electoral justice.
As Nigeria contemplates its democratic future, the question isn't whether the Supreme Court correctly applied existing precedents—it clearly did. The question is whether a democracy can survive when its highest court consistently elevates technical compliance over substantive justice, when electoral accountability becomes practically impossible, when the judiciary transforms from democracy's guardian into its undertaker. The Edo judgment provides an answer that should disturb anyone who believes democracy requires more than empty forms and hollow procedures. Without fundamental reform, Nigerian democracy risks becoming a beautiful corpse, perfectly preserved in judicial formaldehyde but devoid of the life that citizen participation and genuine accountability provide.
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