0
petitions on record
Bullets, Bribes & Ballots
Nigerian Election Petitions.
When an election result in Nigeria is disputed, the case goes to a tribunal. This site collects those cases, with information on the judges who decided them. The data is shown as charts and an interactive map.
0petitions on record
0election cycles
0states and the FCT
0
petitions filed in 2023 0
judges on the bench What is in the record
0
judges on the bench
~250
petitions coded in detail
0
versions of the Electoral Act
The map
Petition counts by state and cycle.
Each state is shaded by how many petitions it produced. Change the election year to see how the totals shift, and select a state to view its cases.
Open the interactive mapPetitions by state
Fewer More
Eight views
What you can explore
The dashboard has eight views. Open any one for a closer look.
Interactive map
Petition counts by state and cycle.
Petition volume
Filings per election cycle.
Grounds of petition
The legal basis petitioners plead, by cycle.
Outcomes
How disputes resolved.
Judgment length
Share of judgments by length.
Judicial composition
The judges, by zone and state.
Electoral Act tracker
Key provisions across versions of the Act.
Case judgments
Full judgments with summaries.
Why this project exists
In Nigeria, the courtroom has become as decisive as the ballot box. Election petition tribunals and the appellate courts that review them are now the final arbiters of who governs — yet the record of those decisions is scattered and hard to reach. This project gathers it and makes it public.
Read about the project How it is built
Read the methodology How the data is built
The data is built from primary sources. Each case goes through three steps.
Step one
Gather the record
Petitions and judgments are collected from tribunal registries and law reports.
Step two
Code each case, twice
Two trained lawyers independently code the grounds, outcome, length and the judges who sat.
Step three
Compare and adjudicate
Every difference between the two codings is resolved before the case enters the record.