An Empirical Analysis of the Supreme Court of Nigeria’s Constitutional Adjudication Role in Election Petition Cases From 2015 to 2023

The Supreme Court of Nigeria exercises final appellate jurisdiction in presidential and gubernatorial election petition cases, making it the ultimate constitutional arbiter of democratic legitimacy in the highest-stakes electoral disputes. The Court's adjudicatory patterns, doctrinal approaches, and institutional effectiveness in resolving election petitions have direct implications for democratic consolidation and the rule of law. This study empirically analyses the Supreme Court's constitutional adjudication in election petition appeals from 2015 to 2023, examining decision outcomes, legal reasoning patterns, procedural innovations, and the Court's engagement with electoral law reform imperatives. A mixed doctrinal and empirical methodology is applied, combining systematic analysis of all Supreme Court election petition judgments during the study period with quantitative coding of decision variables including outcome (affirm, reverse, remit), grounds of appeal upheld, duration from lower court to Supreme Court decision, and compliance by INEC with court orders. Available electoral jurisprudence literature from Nigeria identifies overreliance on technical procedural grounds over substantive merit adjudication and excessive delay in presidential election petition resolution as the most analytically significant institutional patterns. The Constitutional Adjudication Quality Framework and the Electoral Dispute Resolution Principles of International IDEA provide the analytical reference. Findings generate recommendations for Supreme Court electoral jurisdiction reforms and judicial efficiency standards. Keywords: Supreme Court, election petitions, constitutional adjudication, electoral law, Nigeria.