Courts across Nigeria are issuing conflicting orders on the same political disputes, leaving citizens uncertain which faction to recognize and threatening the foundation of democracy itself.
Olusegun Adeniyi, a veteran columnist, draws a stark parallel to the Titanic's final hours. In the film, the captain tells the ship owner the vessel will sink despite his faith in his own propaganda. "She is made of iron, Sir," the captain says. "I assure you she can. And she will. It is a mathematical certainty." That same certainty now applies to Nigeria's judiciary, Adeniyi warns. If Nigerians lose faith in courts as guardians of justice and see them instead as tools of politicians, the nation will arrive at anarchy.
The evidence is everywhere. When politicians file court cases today, they are not seeking justice. They file to create confusion, buy time, destabilize opponents, and manufacture legitimacy through judges rather than voters. Forum shopping, the practice of filing identical cases in different courts to secure favorable rulings, has become routine. Yet when courts of equal standing issue contradictory orders on the same matter, as has happened repeatedly in disputes over the African Democratic Congress, Peoples Democratic Party, and Labour Party, the system collapses.
The ADC crisis illustrates the problem perfectly. Since former Senate President David Mark assumed the party chairmanship, courts have trapped the party in a carousel of conflicting orders. One court says Mark leads; another says he does not. The Independent National Electoral Commission has responded by swinging like a pendulum, removing names from its portal one week and restoring them the next, always obeying whichever judicial directive came most recently. Politicians now spend more time before judges than before voters.
The Electoral Act 2026 was supposed to prevent exactly this. Section 83 explicitly states that no court in Nigeria shall entertain jurisdiction over suits pertaining to the internal affairs of political parties. The provision was designed to stop judicial overreach. Yet barely months after the law passed, courts are already entertaining suits that plainly violate it. Lawyers file them. Judges grant them. The Nigerian Bar Association issues statements with moral authority but no power to enforce them.
This judicial chaos threatens democracy itself because it destroys the rule of law. Courts must stand as the ultimate guardian of that principle. Instead, they have become convenient weapons in the hands of desperate politicians. When citizens cannot trust which court order to obey, when judges in the same system issue opposite rulings on identical matters, when the INEC itself cannot maintain a stable position because courts keep reversing each other, the machinery of democracy grinds to a halt. That is not law. That is theater. And the script leads to anarchy.
