Tinubu's government budgets ₦135bn for lawsuits arising from 2027 elections

The President Bola Tinubu-led Nigerian government has proposed an enormous sum of ₦135.22 billion in the 2026 national budget for "Electoral Adjudication and Post-Election Provision". This has sparked rage, debate, and widespread criticism by opposition parties, legal experts, and civil society organisations.

The contentious budgetary item was disclosed in the House of Representatives Order Paper dated 31st March 2026, which featured the report on the 2026 Appropriation Bill on which the legislators are deliberating.

The budget document stated that the fund was listed in Service-Wide Votes, a centrally managed pool of funds that the Federal Government uses to finance obligations that are not directly tied to any specific ministry, department, or agency.

The Service-Wide votes are widely regarded as the Federal Government’s contingency funding mechanism within the national budget. 

At the same time, the fund aims to support expenses that span various institutions, such as unexpected obligations, national commitments, and liabilities that cannot be simply assigned to a single government agency.

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In many cases, such kinds of allocations are also aimed at covering the costs of activities requiring further approvals or the details of which might not have been fully determined at the time the budget was made.

Within this framework, the ₦135.22billion set aside for electoral adjudication and post-election matters points to the government's anticipated ongoing fiscal strain due to election-related legal conflicts, settlements, and administrative processes that are a frequent feature of Nigeria's elections.

Digging deeper into the budget file, it was clear that the item was part of the larger Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) charges, which basically means that it is a centrally managed obligation and not a direct allocation to any one government arm.

The breakdown of the budget showed that the overall CRF charges amounted to ₦3.70 trillion, so the electoral adjudication provision in this case represents about 3.65 per cent of that portion of government expenditure.

The Federal Government's 2026 budget proposal shows a huge sum of ₦1.01 trillion statutory transfer to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) alongside the allocation.

INEC, taking the lead in the statutory transfer category, will be receiving about 21 percent of the total ₦4.80 trillion statutory transfers that had been proposed in the budget.

Statutory transfers refer to constitutionally mandated funds disbursed directly to government bodies such as INEC, the National Assembly, and the National Judicial Council.

Such allocations are considered as first-line charges to the Consolidated Revenue Fund, and therefore, they are not subject to direct executive control.

Hence, organizations with statutory transfers achieve a level of financial independence with guaranteed funds to execute their constitutionally mandated functions, especially those related to governance, democratic process, and institutional oversight.

The development follows INEC notifying the National Assembly in February 2026 that it needed ₦873.78 billion to carry out the 2027 general elections.

The electoral body also sought an additional ₦171 billion to facilitate its operational activities for the 2026 fiscal year.

Still, analysts noted that the ₦135.22 billion allocation for post-election legal matters seems to be a new item in the budget since it was not clearly listed in the initial draft of the 2026 budget submission.

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Actually, the presence of the disputed item in the budget has opened the floodgates of criticism of the PDP, the main opposition party, and the ADC, another opposition party, as they are the ones raising questions about the transparency and the logic of the allocation.

The National Publicity Secretaries of the two parties, Ini Ememobong, a PDP official, and Bolaji Abdullahi, an ADC official, warned that a big budget for post-election legal battles means that it is likely that the electoral commission may already be expecting disputes arising from the 2027 polls.

On this, Ememobong said the allocation is putting in jeopardy the integrity of the election process in the country.

He explained that these large expenditures are reflective of how the election organizers themselves believe that the results of the elections will be widely challenged.

“It means that INEC itself is anticipating that it will not do well and that people will not accept the outcome of the results,” Ememobong said.

“Because if INEC becomes very transparent, post-election litigation will be reduced drastically. It is the lack of transparency and the obvious opacity of INEC during elections that result in post-election litigation.”

He further questioned why such a large legal budget would be necessary when the electoral body already maintains internal legal teams.

“However, INEC, in every election, is meant to be neutral. So I am wondering what they are funding,” he said.

Ememobong also argued that many of the legal responsibilities should be handled internally.

“Most of the lawyers should be in-house,” he said, adding that the involvement of external counsel could expose the process to political interference.

The PDP spokesman warned that weak institutions and flawed electoral conduct have historically undermined Nigeria’s democracy, urging authorities to prioritise governance and democratic stability ahead of the 2027 elections.

“My advice is that the APC-led Federal Government, INEC, and everyone involved in the 2027 elections should take a step back to ensure we protect the country and democracy before talking about elections and partisanship,” he added.

On his part, ADC spokesman Bolaji Abdullahi acknowledged that it is normal for INEC to prepare for post-election litigation since the commission is often joined as a party in legal disputes arising from elections.

However, he expressed concern about the scale of the proposed funding.According to Abdullahi, while planning for election-related litigation is understandable, allocating N135 billion for such purposes raises serious accountability concerns.

“If elections are free, transparent, and credible, litigation should be minimal,” he said, questioning the number of legal cases the government expects to arise from the 2027 elections.