After a tumultuous pre-election period given the ongoing state of violence in large parts of the country and widespread doubts cast on the electoral commission, this past Wednesday (March 1st) saw Nigeria announce their new president, Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress. Winning just 37% of the vote, the election of Tinubu has sparked controversy from not only the opposition but many in civil society. This begs the question: why all the scepticism and what happens next? 

“It is, to say the least, a rape on democracy,” remarked Julius Abure, chairman of the Labour Party. Sentiments such as these have been surfacing in response to allegations of “widespread manipulation,” and “a lack of transparency by the electoral commission”, according to reports by Al Jazeera. Some are even calling the vote counting a process of “vote allocation.”

This is despite the presence of the European Union’s observer mission, which aims to mitigate and, at best, prevent that which has ultimately occurred during the election: serious logistical problems, inadequate transparency and voter disenfranchisement. Problems regarding transparency were further exacerbated by the newly implemented biometric voter identification system, which is reported to have “allowed for ballot manipulation and disparities in the results from the manual counts,” rather than improve the voting process, reports Al Jazeera. 

The contestation of the result is, to many observers, unsurprising. Months prior to voting day, many expressed their concern over how the country would be able to produce a truly representative result when – problems of the electoral process itself aside – such a large portion of the population is unable to or actively abstaining from voting for fears of security. This is especially true in the northeast of the country, where Boko Haram has been actively pursuing violence and terror for the past 13 years. Having to choose between one’s safety and exercising one’s basic democratic right was a real choice which many Nigerians faced. 

So, what happens next? 

Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar, the second and third-placed candidates, are heading to court with a legal challenge, hoping that the outcome of the election will be overturned. This is no easy task: the pair have until the 31st of March to send evidence and accompanying petitions to the appeals court tribunal in Abuja. Such evidence will have to be collected from over 176,000 polling stations and 8,000 area collection centres, according to the BBC. If and once successfully filed, a result can be expected 180 days later. But, should the parties want a conclusive verdict from the Supreme Court, the process of attaining a final decision should take eight months. This would surpass the date of the inauguration on the 29th of May. 

To overturn the outcome, it has to be proven “that non-compliance with provisions of the law made a difference to the outcome of the election,” according to the BBC. Although a difficult case to prove, it is not impossible. Several other (non-presidential) elections have been overturned in the past, with Peter Obi in fact bringing forward a case in 2003 which resulted in his declaration as the true winner in 2006. 

That the candidates are taking a peaceful, legal route as a means of contesting the result as opposed to inciting a January 6th type response is noteworthy. However, one has to question the extent to which the current situation could have been avoided, given similar patterns of election-day problems and observer-mission ineffectiveness in the past. Even if the runner-up candidates are able to successfully overturn the result, one may argue that only one symptom of Nigeria’s unstable and perhaps declining state of democracy is being treated.