Judicial Review and Electoral Adjudication in Nigeria Under the Electoral Act 2022: A Doctrinal Analysis of Constrained Judicial Navigation and Democratic Legitimacy

This study examines the reconfiguration of judicial review in Nigeria's electoral adjudication under the Electoral Act 2022, intending to determine how courts are recalibrating their review powers within a procedurally rigid, technologically mediated framework. Adopting a doctrinal and qualitative jurisprudential methodology, the study analyses constitutional provisions, the Electoral Act 2022, and selected post-2022 decisions of Election Petition Tribunals, the Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court. The findings reveal an emerging pattern of constrained judicial navigation, characterised by heightened procedural formalism, continued reliance on the doctrine of substantial compliance, and cautious engagement with technologically generated evidence such as BVAS and IReV data. While this approach preserves institutional legitimacy and electoral finality, it simultaneously narrows the scope of substantive judicial scrutiny and creates uncertainty regarding evidentiary hierarchy. In response to these findings, the study recommends more explicit statutory and judicial articulation of evidentiary standards governing electronic and manual records, a more purposive interpretation of substantial compliance in technology-driven elections, and context-sensitive judicial reasoning that better aligns procedural discipline with constitutional values of electoral integrity. The study concludes that judicial review under the Electoral Act 2022 remains viable but normatively fragile, requiring doctrinal refinement to function as an adequate safeguard of democratic accountability