In 2027 elections, Nigerians will not allow INEC and the judiciary to validate electoral fraud. In the 2011 general elections, the Independent National Election Commission (INEC), the electoral management body that organized the elections pulled what may pass as an electoral feat in achieving one of the most open, credible, peaceful and transparent elections in Nigeria’s recent memory. Before that election, Nigeria had the 1999, 2003, 2007 elections, and the Edo 2024 governorship election considered by both national and international election observers, the Commonwealth Election Monitoring groups and the civil society, to be the most disorganized and fraudulent election during which people’s votes were blatantly stolen. Nigeria’s democracy, no doubt, is still nascent, evolving and could be classified as a fraudulent democracy. Go to court for candidates that lose elections in 2027 will not be tenable.

It is clear that many Judges have abandoned the 2022 Electoral Act. In 2023 Elections, Edo 2024 Governorship Election, Judges from Election Tribunals, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court validated electoral frauds which are threats to 2027 elections. The danger posed by these merchants on the bench sometimes goes to the root of the survival of Nigeria’s democracy, the success of 2027 elections and this is why the Supreme Court recognises that an errant Judge is more dangerous than a thief. I observed that the act of judicial banditry has been demonstrated eloquently by the indiscriminate dishing out of ex-parte orders which mostly are politically motivated. Ordinarily, an ex-parte order is a beautiful remedy in equity, designed to defend the defenceless, against superior powers, but is now dishonestly being used in Nigeria to destroy the defenceless by superior, unprincipled, mean and dishonest persons. 

INEC has introduced criminality into the conduct of elections. Electoral frauds and manipulations are threats to 2027 elections. Revelations from Edo 2024 governorship election showed that electoral laws and INEC guidelines were violated and manipulated by INEC. Three sets of Form EC8A results sheet were fraudulently printed and used for Edo 2024 election with the same serial number. Voting and collation of results have been reduced to business of trade. Credible, free and fair elections can help in consolidating democratic values, promote human rights and security. But fraudulent elections promote political instability, corruption and conflict in the polity.

Inwalomhe Donald, inwalomhe.donald@yahoo.com

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