Democracy in the dock and the knives are out

Politics, Harold Lasswell reminded us, is about who gets what, when, and how. In Nigeria today, that question has acquired unsettling new dimensions: who is entitled to contest, under which party, on the authority of which register, following which primary, and under what version of the law.

 The Supreme Court’s verdict penultimate Thursday rendered that question not merely urgent but existential. By restoring Sections 77(5), 77(6), 77(7) and 84(2) of the 2026 Electoral Act, the Court has effectively placed democracy itself in the dock.

 Delivering the lead judgment, Justice Adamu Jauro declared: “The register of members is not a party’s private diary; it is a statutory instrument with electoral consequences.” That pronouncement alone unsettled candidates who once treated membership cards as little more than souvenirs.

 As Chinua Achebe warned, “A man who brings home ant-infested faggots should not complain when lizards pay him a visit.”

 Parties that neglected their registers are now discovering that the lizards of litigation have arrived to feast.

 The days ahead will determine whether candidates who once strutted with the confidence of kings and queens will shuffle like defendants in the dock. Names such as Kingsley Chinda in Rivers, Ovie Omo-Agege in Delta Central, Isa Pantami in Gombe, Oladipupo Adebutu in Ogun, among many others, are already being whispered in political corridors.

 They have not yet been dragged to court, but the proviso is clear: the ink of registers, not the roar of rallies, will decide their fate. A membership card waved at a rally is now as flimsy as a counterfeit note; the real currency is the statutory record. Political ambition has become evidence, and evidence is destiny.

 For years, parties treated registers as housekeeping, primaries as coronations and nomination forms as paperwork to be tidied up later. On this page, on 24 May, I wrote “Of the Consensually Sidelined” as a critique of consensus politics and the disregard for due process.

 The Supreme Court’s verdict is a confirmatory rebuke to such complacency. Internal affairs end where statutory requirements begin.

 INEC, poor INEC, is the reluctant witness dragged into this drama. It cannot ignore the apex court, yet it must resist the temptation to play judge and jury. Its role is to apply the law, verify registers and enforce compliance. Where facts are contested, however, the courts must decide.

 According to National Commissioner Malam Mohammed Haruna and Deputy Director Wilfred Ifogah, the commission has received the Certified True Copy of the judgment and will study it meticulously before announcing its implementation strategy. Because the Supreme Court upheld INEC’s appeal in full, restoring key regulatory clauses of the Electoral Act, the commission is legally positioned to take significant action.

 Inside sources indicate that INEC is preparing to formulate an official position this week regarding candidates who violated the reinstated provisions during party primaries. Civic and legal groups are urging it to remove or update names on its portal for affected candidates. It may well be a week of the long knife, but surely a definitive one for the parties, their candidates and Nigeria’s 2027 general elections.

 The first cuts have already been made. In Ogun, the Federal High Court in Abeokuta has adjourned to 3 November a suit by PDP senatorial aspirant Sogbesan Amoo challenging INEC’s recognition of Senator Iyabo Obasanjo as the party’s candidate for Ogun Central. Amoo contends that Obasanjo’s name was not contained in the PDP membership register submitted to INEC and that she neither participated in nor won the party’s senatorial primary.

 The court has yet to determine those allegations, but the case is an early illustration of the litigation the Supreme Court judgment may unleash.

 In Gombe, the tremors are equally sharp. On 16 May 2026, the APC primary produced J.C. Ali as candidate for the Balanga/Billiri Federal Constituency. But on Wednesday, citing the Supreme Court precedent, Justice Vera Ibrahim of the Federal High Court, Gombe, ruled the primary invalid, ordered the APC to conduct a fresh primary within 30 days and barred Ali from participating because his name was not in the register forwarded to INEC. The ruling underscores a broader warning: candidates whose membership cannot be verified in the statutory register, those who defected after losing primaries elsewhere, and those who secured nominations without meeting membership or participation requirements may all face similar scrutiny.

 These are not isolated tremors; they are the first cracks in a tectonic plate. As the Hausa say, “Komai nisan jifa, ƙasa zai dawo” — no matter how far you throw a stone, it will return to earth. Every nomination must now return to the earth of statutory compliance. With INEC expected to issue guidance this week, the Gombe and Ogun judgments may prove less isolated incidents than early tremors of a larger legal reckoning. The question is no longer whether challenges will come, but how many nominations will withstand the knives of judicial review.

 The danger is clear: if INEC rejects a candidate, it will be accused of bias; if it accepts, it will be accused of incompetence. The verdict has therefore placed INEC’s credibility on trial alongside democracy itself. I raised this concern in “N135bn as Price of Justice or Architecture of Distrust?”, where I queried the ballooning litigation budget as a symptom of institutionalised distrust.

 And the citizens? They are the weary jury, watching this courtroom drama unfold. For them, the implications are paradoxical. On the one hand, the ruling could strengthen democracy by compelling parties to maintain credible registers and conduct transparent primaries. On the other, it risks narrowing the ballot through technical exclusions, turning elections into contests of lawyers rather than contests of ideas.

 Voters may find their preferred candidate removed not by the electorate but by a judge citing a register defect. That breeds cynicism, the sense that democracy is being decided in courtrooms rather than polling units.

 Yet there is also a democratic gain: if parties are compelled to professionalise, the quality of candidates and the integrity of processes may improve.

 Consider the numbers. In 2019, INEC reported over 1,600 pre-election cases, many revolving around nomination disputes. By 2023, that figure had risen to nearly 2,000.

 Analysts now predict that litigation in 2027 could double the figure, consuming judicial time and public trust. Against this backdrop, the humongous provision of N135.22 billion under “Electoral Adjudication and Post-Election Provision” begins to make sense.

 INEC, which traditionally budgeted only N2–3 billion for litigation, now finds its litigation subhead soaring compared with previous appropriations.

 The state has effectively admitted that Nigeria’s democracy is as much a contest of ballots as of affidavits.

 As one old Nigerian political joke goes, every politician carries two certificates: the one he displays to voters and the one his opponent is searching for. After last Thursday, we may now have to add a third: the party register. And in that register, democracy itself is being written into evidence.

 The Supreme Court’s verdict is not just a ruling; it is a thunderclap that has rearranged the furniture of Nigerian democracy. What was once treated as party housekeeping, registers, primaries, substitutions, has been elevated to sacred scripture.

 The dock is crowded: candidates, parties, INEC, even the citizens themselves. And democracy, like a weary defendant, is asked to account for its sins.

 The verdict forces us to confront the tension between legality and legitimacy. Legality insists on compliance with statutes; legitimacy insists on the consent of the governed. When legality disqualifies a popular candidate, legitimacy suffers. When legitimacy ignores legality, democracy degenerates into chaos. The Supreme Court has reminded us that democracy is a delicate balance of both. As Aristotle observed, “Law is order, and good law is good order.”

 The road to 2027 is not merely bumpy; it is mined with legal explosives. Each candidate must tread carefully, each party must professionalise, and each citizen must remain vigilant.

 The verdict has changed the race but also offered an opportunity: to cleanse the system of improvisation, elevate compliance and restore faith in institutions.

 If these actors choose professionalism over improvisation, the turbulence may yet serve democracy. If they choose weaponisation, 2027 will be remembered not as a triumph of the ballot but as another chapter in Nigeria’s long history of deciding in the courthouse what ought first to have been settled in the party and ultimately decided by the people.

 The verdict has placed democracy itself in the dock, and the litigation billions have written its fate into the budget. Whether Nigeria seizes this moment to strengthen democratic practice or squanders it in procedural warfare will determine whether democracy emerges acquitted or condemned.

 As the Igbo proverb says, “When the moon is shining, the cripple becomes hungry for a walk.” The Supreme Court has lit the moon; whether Nigeria’s democracy walks or stumbles will depend on how faithfully parties keep their registers and how wisely INEC wields its knife. Somewhere between the roar of the people and the silence of the courtroom, democracy itself waits for judgment.