If Nigeria is to revisit electoral timelines or evidentiary regimes, it must do so holistically—harmonising the Constitution, the Electoral Act, and the Evidence Act, while recalibrating expectations of what an adversarial system can reasonably deliver within compressed constitutional time… Absent such intellectual discipline, we shall once again manufacture a crisis—and then blame the courts for obeying the law
THE following is a redacted excerpt from a chapter of my manuscript on Pre-Election Matters. It is intended to assist lawmakers in adopting a holistic and doctrinally coherent approach to the proposed amendments to the Electoral Act.
I recall my participation in the White Paper Committee that considered the recommendations arising from the Justice Mohammed Uwais Electoral Reform Panel. Among the many proposals placed before us—some pragmatic, others aspirational—few generated as much ideological fervour as the question of time limits for the commencement and determination of election petitions.
At the time, civil society advocacy coalesced around a proposal that election petitions be commenced and concluded within three months. Comparative references were confidently drawn from Kenya and other jurisdictions. The proposition was presented not merely as reform, but as democratic necessity. Any cautionary submission grounded in the structural realities of Nigeria’s adversarial system was too readily dismissed as conservative, even anti-people.
Yet constitutional design cannot be animated by sentiment. It must be disciplined by institutional logic.
- I. The Negotiated Compromise and Its Consequences
The eventual compromise—six months for the hearing and determination of election petitions—was presented as a pragmatic midpoint between idealism and feasibility. However, constitutionalising that timeline through Section 285 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) fundamentally altered the character of electoral adjudication in Nigeria.
What emerged was not merely expedition, but rigidity.
The Supreme Court’s subsequent interpretative posture—understandably anchored in the supremacy and textual finality of constitutional timelines—produced a jurisprudence that admits of no exception. The six-month limit became absolute. The 21-day period for filing petitions became jurisdictional. Evidence not frontloaded within prescribed limits became inadmissible. The tribunal’s lifespan became peremptory and non-extendable.
In ordinary civil litigation, time regulates procedure. In election litigation under Section 285, time extinguishes jurisdiction.
Thus, what began as a reform designed to enhance electoral certainty evolved into a regime in which procedural inflexibility frequently defeats substantive justice. Today, a significant proportion of election petitions fail—not necessarily for want of merit—but for inability to satisfy the unforgiving procedural architecture imposed by constitutional time.
The system has chosen finality over fullness of inquiry.
- Adversarialism and the Illusion of Comparative Transplants
The three-month proposal underestimated the structural demands of Nigeria’s adversarial system. Unlike inquisitorial models, where judicial officers actively manage evidence and investigation, our system relies on party presentation, cross-examination, documentary proof, and layered appellate review.
To expect a petitioner to investigate nationwide electoral irregularities, gather certified documents across multiple states, frontload witnesses, and conduct full adversarial hearings within compressed timelines—without inquisitorial assistance—is to impose near-impossible burdens.
Comparative constitutional borrowing, unadjusted for procedural ecology, is jurisprudentially hazardous. A timeline suitable for one legal culture may destabilize another.
III. The Rise of Interpretative Absolutism
Section 285’s rigidity compelled the judiciary into what may properly be termed interpretative absolutism. Once time became constitutional, it ceased to be elastic. The courts, sworn to uphold the Constitution, could not temper its command with equitable discretion.
The closing of the evidentiary window after 21 days, the refusal to admit late-discovered documents, and the striking out of petitions for marginal procedural infractions were not products of judicial hostility to democracy. They were logical consequences of constitutional text elevated above procedural flexibility.
The irony is profound: a reform intended to protect electoral integrity now generates public perception that courts avoid the merits.
Yet judges do not legislate timelines; they obey them.
IV. The Present Reform Agitation: A Structural Imbalance
Today, public pressure mounts for further amendments to the Electoral Act—some proposals even contemplate embedding rigid adjectival (procedural) provisions directly into the statute, in ways that may conflict with or sidestep the Evidence Act.
Such proposals betray a conceptual confusion.
The Evidence Act is not a subsidiary procedural convenience; it is the governing architecture of proof. To craft absolute procedural bars within the Electoral Act, without harmonised amendment to the Evidence Act or constitutional recalibration, is to invite doctrinal fragmentation and interpretative crisis.
One cannot alter evidentiary thresholds in electoral litigation while leaving the foundational law of evidence untouched. Nor can one constitutionalise procedural rigidity and then expect judicial elasticity.
Reform without systemic coherence merely displaces dysfunction.
V. The Politics of Blame and the Manufacture of Moral Panic
There is a discernible pattern in Nigeria’s electoral reform culture: structural design failures are externalised onto the judiciary.
When petitions collapse under constitutionally mandated timelines, the judiciary is accused of technicality.
When evidentiary burdens prove insurmountable, the courts are accused of formalism.
When constitutional text yields harsh outcomes, judges are accused of indifference.
This is scapegoating masquerading as democratic vigilance.
A judiciary bound by constitutional time cannot suspend time in the name of sympathy. To demand that it do so is to misunderstand the separation of powers. If rigidity produces hardship, the remedy lies in constitutional amendment—not judicial improvisation.
The present climate risks descending into moral panic: a narrative in which every dismissed petition becomes proof of judicial complicity, rather than reflection of constitutional architecture.
VI. The Human Element and the Reform Misdiagnosis
From my vantage point, both during the Uwais reform deliberations and in subsequent jurisprudential evolution, the central vulnerability of our electoral system has never been time alone. It has been the human element—administrative integrity, investigative capacity, prosecutorial courage, and political culture.
One may refine timelines indefinitely; yet without strengthening institutional capacity, ethical enforcement, and evidentiary accessibility, reform will remain cosmetic.
A system that makes proof structurally burdensome while accelerating adjudication creates inevitable failure points.
VII. Conclusion: Constitutional Design and Democratic Patience
Electoral adjudication requires two virtues often in tension: certainty and justice. Section 285 resolved that tension decisively in favour of certainty. Whether that balance remains optimal is a legitimate subject of constitutional reconsideration.
But reform must proceed with doctrinal coherence, institutional realism, and procedural humility. Otherwise, we risk repeating a familiar cycle:
- Idealistic reform;
- Structural rigidity;
- Adjudicative hardship;
- Public disillusionment;
- Judicial scapegoating.
The judiciary did not design the clock. It merely reads it.
If Nigeria is to revisit electoral timelines or evidentiary regimes, it must do so holistically—harmonising the Constitution, the Electoral Act, and the Evidence Act, while recalibrating expectations of what an adversarial system can reasonably deliver within compressed constitutional time.
Absent such intellectual discipline, we shall once again manufacture a crisis—and then blame the courts for obeying the law.
- Sam Kargbo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, writes from Abuja.