By Ifeanyi Igwebike Mbanefo
Nigeria does not need another electoral reform bill to correct every flaw in its democracy.
What it needs now is the disciplined use of the legal tools already embedded in the Electoral Act, the Constitution, and the courts’ remedial powers.
The uncomfortable fact is that Nigeria’s turnout crisis is not merely political; it is institutional.
Reported turnout in the 2023 general election fell to 26.72%, the lowest since 1999, and the broader trend has been downward for years.
Every election cycle that passes without action does not preserve the status quo — it deepens it.
The decline from 53.68% turnout in 2011, to 47.09% in 2015, to 35.66% in 2019, to 28.63% in 2023 is not noise around a stable baseline.
It is a trend line, and trend lines compound.
Each cycle of unaddressed register inaccuracy, unaudited duplication, and unchallenged regional suppression – Lagos, Kano, Port Harcourt – makes the next cycle’s numbers less credible and the public’s disengagement more rational.
A citizen who concludes, correctly, that the register including their name may be inaccurate, that their polling unit may be under-resourced by design, and that no institution has ever been forced to prove otherwise, is not behaving irrationally by staying home.
The apathy is downstream of the impunity.
That decline is consistent with a public that increasingly doubts that the electoral process is being managed with the level of integrity the law requires.
The Legal Basis
The starting point is Section 9 of the Electoral Act 2022, which requires INEC to compile, maintain, and update the National Register of Voters on a continuous basis.
That language is mandatory.
Not optional, discretionary or voluntary.
Where a statute imposes a continuing public duty, courts can compel performance through appropriate orders if the duty is not being discharged.
The same is true of election timing. Section 28(1) of the Electoral Act requires INEC to publish notice of an election not later than 360 days before the election date.
That statutory timeline matters because it determines when pre-election remedies remain practically useful.
Once the election season is too close, courts are often reluctant to grant relief that would disrupt the process, even where the underlying complaint is serious.
Judicial Remedies Exist. Yes
Recent decisions show that Nigerian courts are prepared to enforce electoral duties when properly approached.
In one case, the Federal High Court ordered INEC to resume voter registration and continue the process until the statutory deadline.
In another, the court ordered INEC to clean up the register by removing underage voters and to identify officials responsible for the unlawful entries.
More recently, a court ordered INEC to deregister non-compliant political parties, showing that the commission’s regulatory responsibilities are also judicially enforceable.
The lesson is not that litigation is easy. It is that litigation can work when the relief sought is specific, the legal duty is clear, and the claimant has chosen the proper procedural form.
When two individuals sued over temporary voter cards, the court granted relief only to them personally, expressly refusing to extend it nationally because the suit was not filed in a representative capacity.
That is not a closed door.
It is a lesson, sitting in the law reports since 2023, that nobody with standing has yet acted on at scale.
The temporary voter card case is a useful warning: where litigants seek broad systemic relief but proceed only in an individual capacity, the court may confine the result to the named plaintiffs.
That makes representative standing, or carefully structured public-interest litigation, essential if the objective is register-wide or nationwide reform.
Why 2026 Matters
The 2027 election is not a remote future event. The legal timetable is already running.
INEC has moved ahead with the 2027 schedule in line with the Electoral Act’s notice requirements, which means the window for meaningful pre-election litigation, register audit demands, and coalition action is now.
This timing has legal consequences.
A challenge brought early enough can seek structural orders, supervisory timelines, and compliance measures.
A challenge brought too late risks becoming a symbolic petition after the damage has been done.
That is why the proper question is not whether the law provides tools.
It does.
The question is whether those tools will be invoked before the timetable hardens into political inevitability.
What A Stronger Case Looks Like
A stronger litigation strategy would likely include the following:
- A representative or public-interest suit seeking mandamus to compel INEC’s continuous maintenance of the register under Section 9.
- A request for a court-supervised, independent audit of the National Register of Voters, framed as enforcement of a statutory duty rather than a political complaint.
- Evidence of specific defects, such as duplicate registrations, underage entries, or unexplained omissions, to show that the duty has not been merely delayed but materially breached. There are abundant evidence of disenfranchisement arising from recent elections – if claims by parties have any merit
- Co-petitioners with institutional credibility, such as civil society organizations and professional bodies – NBA, Yiaga Africa Serap, etc. – so the case is not limited to individual grievances.
- Early filing in 2026, before the election timetable makes meaningful structural relief harder to obtain.
This approach does not require new legislation to begin.
It requires coordination, documentation, and the willingness to use the law as it already stands.
The Real Legal Issue
Nigeria’s democratic weakness is often described as a lack of reform.
More precisely, it is a failure of enforcement.
The Electoral Act already imposes duties on INEC, and the courts have already demonstrated that those duties can be enforced.
What is missing is not legal theory.
It is the decision to move from complaint to claim, and from claim to enforceable order.
The most important legal question now is whether political parties, civil society, and affected voters will act while the courts can still grant meaningful relief.
If they wait until the election is imminent, the law may remain correct but ineffective.
And we continue to elect leaders with less than 10% of the registered voters and less than 10% of the population. Popular democracy, indeed.
That is standing popular democracy on its head.
What we have had since 2015 is a government of the minority, for the minority, by the minority.
Same actors. Same narrow interests. Different ethnic groups. Different religions.
One philosophy — massive corruption.
That’s why parties believe the election will be decided by the number of governors and legislators in their ranks, rather than the size of their support base.
Some governors are even acting on that impulse by pledging the number of votes they will give their presidential candidates, when in reality they have only ONE VOTE.
— Ifeanyi Igwebike Mbanefo, CEO Museums and Monuments Academy lives in Montreal Canada
