Bullets, Bribes & Ballots
A public dashboard that gathers two decades of Nigerian election-petition cases, the judges who decided them, and how the Electoral Act has changed. An interactive map, linked charts, and full case judgments, all from a single curated dataset.
Bullets, Bribes & Ballots
- By the numbers. 3,312 petitions across six cycles, 943 in 2023, decided by 554 judges.
- Petitions by state. An interactive choropleth, shaded by volume and toggled by election year.
- Eight linked views. Outcomes, grounds, judgment length and judicial composition.
- Case judgments. Full rulings summarised, with the judgment PDFs.
- Why it exists. The record gathered and explained, in one place.
Type
Civic-Data Dashboard
Capabilities
Stack
Key features
Overview
Court challenges have become a routine feature of contested Nigerian elections, and the tribunals and appellate courts that review them often decide who governs. The dashboard gathers that record and makes it legible, explaining both the result and the reasoning.
Every view reads from the same curated dataset. An interactive map shows petition volume by state across six election cycles, linked charts break down outcomes, grounds and judgment length, and full case judgments are summarised in plain language alongside the original PDFs. A tracker compares key provisions across five versions of the Electoral Act.
Why it was built
The record of these decisions is hard to reach. Judgments sit scattered across tribunals and cycles, certified copies are costly and slow to obtain, and the reasoning inside them is written for election lawyers rather than the public. The project consolidates that record into one place and makes it understandable to journalists, researchers and citizens.
Inside the product
Interactive map
A choropleth of petition volume by state, shaded by count and toggled across six election cycles.
Linked views
Outcomes, grounds pleaded, judgment length and the composition of the bench, drawn from a coded subset of fully adjudicated decisions.
Case judgments
Full rulings summarised in plain language, with the tribunal and appellate judgment PDFs.
Electoral Act tracker
Key provisions compared across five versions of the Act, with the answer under each one.
Results
- 3,312 petitions on record across six general-election cycles, 943 of them in 2023.
- 554 judges on the bench, linked to the cases they decided.
- A coded subset of fully adjudicated decisions, updated as more cases are added.
- Full judgments and Electoral Act provisions gathered in one searchable place.
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