THE ELECTORAL ACT AND THE ADMISSIBILITY TEST OF FORENSIC EVIDENCE IN NIGERIA

Abstract

The Electoral Act, 2022, came with innovations that are laudable and commendable, most especially the introduction of technology in the process of general elections in Nigeria. Thereafter, the election petitions took the centre stage with many cases won and lost on the strength of the evidence from both sides. What became obvious was the issues associated with the electronical, digital or computerized evidence which are parts of forensic evidence. In view of the fact that, the deployment of technology into the elections right from registration of voter’s accreditation and simultaneous voting up to announcement of the results is worthy of commendation. Nevertheless, there was failures along the away, this forms the bases of some petitions, as well as the issues on evidence and admissibility became imperative and faced with a lot of challenges. This work tried to analysis the Electoral Act vis-à-vis the Evidence Act, thereby making some suggestions into the Evidence Act itself and a recommendation for a purposeful interpretation of the Electoral Act is made to meet the intention of the amendment be brought to bear into the electoral system. The research exposed some silent features of the Evidence Act and marries them with the Electoral Act, thereby bringing out visibly the beauty of forensic evidence, as the law is clear and adequate to address the issue of admissibility. In doing this, doctrinal research approach was employed from both the Electoral Act and the Evidence Act with some explicit decided cases on the subject matter.