Judicialising party primaries : contemporary developments in Nigeria

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dc.contributor.author Ihembe, Martin Ayankaa
dc.contributor.author Isike, Christopher
dc.date.accessioned 2024-07-05T04:35:04Z
dc.date.available 2024-07-05T04:35:04Z
dc.date.issued 2022-06
dc.description.abstract This article explores the judicialisation of party primaries in contemporary Nigeria, which is a defining feature of the country’s electoral politics. Since the inception of the Fourth Republic, the lack of internal democracy within the parties has been the source of protracted crises during nomination, and this often gravitates to the serenity of the court(s). Dominant disquisitions in legal theory contend that disputed primaries are internal party affairs; hence, they are non-justiciable. Drawing on primary and secondary data – YouTube interviews, the Constitution, the Electoral Act, judicial ruling, media reports, and personal observation – this article argues that to the extent that political parties are juridical entities, disputed primary elections are justiciable, hence a legal question to be resolved by the judiciary. To validate our argument, the article draws on Raphael’s (1970) notion of universal and compulsory jurisdiction. Our enquiry reveals that the failure of the internal mechanisms of the parties to resolve disputed party primaries accounts for aggrieved aspirants’ reliance on legal redress. While this approach has been questioned from a legalistic point of view, the constitutionality of seeking legal redress has its provenance in the change of legal regime regulating party primaries, which has shaped, reshaped, and positively impacted electoral democracy in Nigeria. en_US
dc.description.department Political Sciences en_US
dc.description.librarian hj2024 en_US
dc.description.sdg SDG-16:Peace,justice and strong institutions en_US
dc.description.uri https://www.eisa.org/publications/jae en_US
dc.identifier.citation Ihembe, M.A. & Isike, C. 2022, 'Judicialising party primaries: contemporary developments in Nigeria', Journal of African Elections, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 24-43, doi : 10.20940/JAE/2022/v21i1a2. en_US
dc.identifier.issn 1609-4700
dc.identifier.other 10.20940/JAE/2022/v21i1a2
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/2263/96808
dc.language.iso en en_US
dc.publisher Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa en_US
dc.rights Article is published under a Creative Commons licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. en_US
dc.subject Disputed primaries en_US
dc.subject Justiciable en_US
dc.subject Judiciary en_US
dc.subject Nigeria en_US
dc.subject Constitution en_US
dc.subject SDG-16: Peace, justice and strong institutions en_US
dc.title Judicialising party primaries : contemporary developments in Nigeria en_US
dc.type Article en_US


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