Nigeria’s presidential election court last week upheld the result of the country’s controversial election in February, in which Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the ruling All-Progressives Congress (APC) party was voted president.
The appeals court’s ruling, made in a televised event on 6 September, is no surprise – the court traditionally sides with the president – but the manner in which it did so has done nothing to reassure suspicious voters or allay fears of vote rigging. If anything, it has further undermined trust in the country’s electoral body and Nigeria’s democratic process as a whole.
The petition to the court came from opposition candidates Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP), who came second and third, respectively. They challenged the election result over various issues, notably how the electoral results were transmitted.
