Nigeria Considers Panel to Probe Election Violence
After more than 100 killed during the 2023 presidential election, lawmakers back a new tribunal to prosecute electoral crimes — but justice remains elusive.
By Ajibola Amzat and Olajide Adelana
July 24, 2025
Electoral officers protest about non payment of allowance and intimidation by thugs at the venue of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) collation center after elections in Kano State.
Photograph by Sodiq Adelakun/CCIJ
In the wake of more than 100 killed and many more injured in the weeks surrounding Nigeria’s 2023 presidential balloting, the nation’s legislature is moving closer to passing a bill creating an agency to investigate election-related violence.
The Nigerian House of Representatives passed a bill in May that would create a National Electoral Offences Commission, designed to investigate election-related violence among other crimes.
“The bill enjoys strong bipartisan support,” Rep. Akin Rotimi Jr., a spokesperson for the chamber, said in a statement to the Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism (CCIJ).
There is a “shared belief among members that establishing an independent body to investigate and prosecute electoral offences is essential to strengthening our democracy,” he said.
“There is also growing national consensus on the need for credible elections as a foundation for good governance.”
The proposal is now pending before the Senate.
Passage is not assured. The legislature has considered at least one similar proposal in recent years and it was not approved. The Senate in July began holding hearings on the constitutionality of election-related bills. A Senate spokesperson did not respond to inquiries by CCIJ on when the legislative body may hold a vote on the proposal.
More than 100 Nigerians were killed across Nigeria during the weeks surrounding the presidential election. Hundreds more, including journalists and election officers, sustained gunshot wounds and other injuries.
It is unclear how many of those killings and injuries led to prosecutions.
Under current law, Nigeria’s Independent National Election Commission and police investigate election-related violations. INEC told one Nigerian news organization several weeks after the presidential election that, for all the casualties, 215 cases were handed over by the police to the election management body. In late 2023, the agency told the same publication, Punch, that 197 cases of electoral offences have yet to be prosecuted. INEC recently confirmed these figures to CCIJ.
The remaining 18 cases, including murder, were returned to the police, but at that time, none of these had gone to trial.
Damaged voting material after masked men armed with a riffle disrupted the voting process and burnt ballot papers and boxes in Adedeji Street, Mafoluku Oshodi during elections in Lagos. Photograph by Adeniran Ayodele/CCIJ
INEC did not respond to repeated requests from the Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism for updated statistics on arrests and prosecutions.
The lack of prosecutions and justice for the killings has dampened faith in Nigeria’s criminal justice system.
INEC has pushed back against criticism that it has not done enough to prosecute election-related violence. In July 2024, the nonprofit Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) obtained a court order against INEC to investigate wrongdoing and violence that happened during the election, and to prosecute offenders.
INEC responded in a press release that SERAP misrepresented facts surrounding its efforts to prosecute offenders who committed violence and wrongdoing.
INEC said it was overworked trying to handle prosecutions and enlisted attorneys from the Nigerian Bar Association to help.
“Recognising the need for their speedy prosecution and bearing in mind that the Commission (INEC) does not have enough in-house lawyers, it engaged the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA),” the agency said. INEC said it has been “providing updates to the public” to keep them informed.
Not everyone has had faith in this process.
Those who killed him still move around freely without justice.
Florence Udo told the Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism last year how she has waited for justice for those who killed her husband during the 2023 Nigerian presidential elections.
Her husband, Uduak Udo, was dedicated to democracy. He left his home early to vote that February morning, to ensure ballots were not missing at his sixth ward voting station in Etim Ekpo, Akwa Ibom State, in South South Nigeria, near the border with Cameroon.
Local thugs, she said, went to polling stations and targeted supporters of the Peoples Democratic Party, threatening that they would not be allowed to vote.
A melee ensued. Florence heard about the violence and ran home, only to learn later that her husband was murdered.
Despite his killing happening in public, no one has been arrested for his death. No killer has been identified, no one has gone to trial.
Nigeria’s Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared the election free and peaceful. The sheer number of incidents across the country told a different story.
A Human Rights Watch report in 2023 underscored that INEC has “a lack of effectiveness” dealing with violence, in part because it has limited authority to investigate cases.
One place that exemplifies the problem is Etim Ekpo Local Government Area in Akwa Ibom State, in South South Nigeria. Violence marred the 2023 election there. Despite widely reported arrests, no prosecutions have been made.
Etim Ekpo, home to key political figures like the All Progressives Congress’s Godswill Akpabio and the Peoples Democratic Party’s Emmanuel Enoidem, descended into chaos as they battled for a senate seat.
Thugs armed with axes, swords and bottles attacked election officers and voters, sending many fleeing in panic. Local councillor Ime Ukpong attempted to restore order. He was shot at.
Despite widely reported arrests, no prosecutions have been made.
INEC’s data indicates the 2023 elections recorded the lowest voters’ participation since the 1999 return of democracy. At least 1,530 Nigerians lost their lives between 1999 and 2019, going by figures from the Council on Foreign Relations, an international NGO.
Florence Udo earlier told CCIJ she already lost faith, and vowed never to participate in voting again.
“Those who killed him still move around freely without justice,” she said. “I don’t think I will ever participate in any future election or allow my children to ever participate. Nigeria’s elections have become battlegrounds where you must kill to survive.”
This story was produced with the support of MuckRock and the Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web.
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