by Mohammed Bello Doka
15 May, 2026.
Let us speak plainly. A government that sets aside ₦135.22 billion for post-election litigation before a single ballot is cast is not preparing to win at the polls. It is preparing to win in the courts. That is not democracy. That is a heist dressed in legal robes.
The 2026 budget quietly includes this sum under Service-Wide Votes. After the 2023 elections, the total spent on defending election petitions was roughly ₦3 billion. Now we have jumped to over ₦135 billion. No inflation justifies that. Only one logic fits: the ruling party expects to lose at the ballot box and intends to spend whatever it takes to reverse the outcome through litigation.
Consider what this buys. Legions of lawyers. Endless appeals. The ability to exhaust opposition petitioners who must fund their own cases. Meanwhile, the Independent National Electoral Commission is asking for ₦873.78 billion for the 2027 elections, more than double the 2023 budget. Together, we are approaching one trillion naira just to argue about who won. That money could build hospitals, equip schools, and feed children. Instead, it is stockpiled for legal warfare.
This budget is a preemptive strike against the will of the people. The government knows that if the election is free and fair, given the hunger and anger across Nigeria, the ruling party may well lose. So instead of fixing the economy, they are fixing the legal system. They are betting that they can lose the vote but win the verdict.
Now here is a clarion call to every opposition leader. Look at the history of Nigerian elections. In 2019 and 2023, a fragmented opposition ran multiple candidates against the All Progressives Congress. Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, Rabiu Kwankwaso, and others refused to unite. The result was a divided vote, split legal funding, and multiple weak petitions instead of one strong challenge. Each opposition party spent millions on separate tribunals, separate lawyers, separate appeals. Meanwhile, the ruling party deployed a single, well-funded legal machine and crushed every petition with ease. Division did not serve the opposition. It served the government. As legal practitioner and public policy analyst Prof. Chris Nwakobia warned, “An opposition fighting itself is coronating Bola Ahmed Tinubu for 2027. The time has come for lovers of this nation to bury individualism and ego for the nation’s betterment.”
The 2027 election will be different in one grim respect. The government is, by all indications, trying to impose itself on the people regardless of who actually wins. And the courts, flooded with government-funded litigation, may well find some legal reasoning to justify that imposition. The only remaining option for the Nigerian masses, should the ballot be stolen and the courts rubber-stamp the theft, might be mass protest to attract foreign attention and pressure. But a disunited opposition cannot guarantee such a protest. You cannot lead what you have not built together. You cannot mobilise millions when you are busy fighting each other for who gets to be the lead petitioner.
The warning signs are already flashing red. The August 2024 #EndBadGovernance protests, which emerged as a nationwide expression of frustration over worsening economic hardship, inflation, fuel subsidy removal, and rising insecurity, were met with a security crackdown that led to arrests across the country, with civil society organisations estimating that over 1,000 people, many of them young Nigerians including minors, were detained. Human rights activist Omoyele Sowore has accused the police of intentionally stalling the trial of 11 activists arrested during those protests, who face treason charges for participating in a demonstration meant to highlight rising insecurity, economic hardship, and government corruption. Prof. Jibrin Ibrahim, a respected political analyst, has observed that “the Nigerian government is increasingly responding to protests against corruption, human rights violations, and governance failures as subversion, treason and even terrorism,” adding that “this behaviour is much worse than what we have seen under military rule.” He further noted that “it is as if the government is determined to fan the embers of protest and rebellion.”
The lesson from recent history is painful but clear. A divided opposition divides its funding, its legal talent, and its moral authority to speak for the people. When you fight separately, you lose separately. The APC understands this. That is why they have no problem with multiple opposition candidates. Each new candidate is a gift to the incumbent, draining resources that could have been pooled into a single, formidable challenge.
If opposition leaders truly want to give a meaningful fight in 2027, they must unite behind one candidate and one legal strategy. Pool your funding. Share your lawyers. Coordinate your tribunal challenges and your protest plans. Otherwise, the ₦135.22 billion waiting in the government’s war chest will swallow each of you one by one.
Consider the global precedents. In Kenya, June 2024 Gen Z-led protests forced President William Ruto to withdraw a controversial finance bill that would have introduced sweeping tax hikes, with at least 23 people killed and parliament briefly stormed and set ablaze by angry protesters. The protests, largely driven by young activists, demonstrated that organised, unified public pressure can force a government to back down. Similarly, in Senegal, when President Macky Sall attempted to postpone the February 2024 presidential election, mass protests erupted, security forces used live ammunition against demonstrators killing at least three people, but sustained civic action eventually forced the election to be held, resulting in opposition candidate Bassirou Diomaye Faye winning from prison and becoming Senegal’s youngest president. In Sri Lanka, what began as a small protest demanding basic necessities turned into a tsunami that uprooted the once-powerful Rajapaksa family in what analysts called Sri Lanka’s “Arab Spring” moment, forcing the president to resign amid the country’s worst economic crisis in decades. And the Arab Spring itself, which began in Tunisia and spread to Egypt, Libya, and Yemen, toppled entrenched governments through sustained, unified mass action.
Here at home, human rights body HURIWA has warned that “the people of Nigeria may be pushed to the walls and compelled to organise protests bigger than what we saw in the year 2020,” cautioning that “no amount of armed attacks of protesters by armed goons of this government would be able to stop the coming protests if bad governance continues at the pace we are witnessing in Nigeria.” Even Primate Elijah Ayodele has predicted at least eight major protests against the Tinubu administration in 2026, including NLC protest, warning that unchecked anger and political dissatisfaction could quickly spiral into violent confrontations that threaten national security. Former Education Minister Oby Ezekwesili has similarly urged Nigerians to rise in defence of their democratic rights, stressing that “Nigeria’s democracy cannot survive on the silencing of conscience.”
Let me conclude with this warning. Given the way Nigeria is going today, with poverty, hunger, insecurity, and now a budget for judicial coup, mass protest is not a matter of if it will happen. It is a matter of when it happens. And when that moment comes, the question is not whether there will be chaos. The question is who becomes the victim and who rules the ashes. The opposition has a choice. You can unite now and defeat Tinubu outright at the polls, saving the country from destabilisation. Or you can remain divided, watch Tinubu return through court-aided imposition, and then face your own destruction as the streets boil over and the public turns its fury on everyone in power, including those who failed to provide a credible alternative. As Atedo Peterside, founder of Stanbic IBTC Bank, warned, many Nigerians have already lost confidence in both the electoral commission and the judiciary, cautioning that citizens might resort to self-help in future polls if trust is not restored. Do not say you were not warned.
Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via [email protected]
Abuja Network News
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