Newly appointed INEC Chairman, Prof. Joash Amupitan (SAN), has pledged to end the trend of elections being settled in courtrooms rather than at the polls. Speaking a week after his swearing-in by President Bola Tinubu, Amupitan said his tenure will ensure that “electoral victories are determined by voters, not by judges.”
Addressing participants at the 56th Annual Conference of the Nigerian Association of Law Teachers (NALT) in Abuja, he lamented the surge in pre-election lawsuits, describing the over 1,000 cases filed before the 2023 elections as “litigation by other means.”
Amupitan emphasized that true democracy must be decided by the people, not by the courts. He urged political parties to respect their constitutions and the Electoral Act to reduce internal conflicts that fuel election disputes.
He also called on the National Assembly to strengthen electoral laws to promote transparency and restore public confidence. “We cannot continue to allow the courts to determine our elections,” he said. “Elections must be won at the polling units.”
The INEC boss added that his goal is to make the law an instrument of fairness, where even losers can accept defeat honorably, a sign, he said, of a mature democracy.
