State Capture and the Independence of the Independent National Electoral Commission: A Contextual ExpositionState Capture and the Independence of the Independent National Electoral Commission: A Contextual Exposition

Abstract

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is constitutionally designed as Nigeria's impartial umpire of democratic contestation, yet the very mechanisms meant to secure its independence (presidential appointment of its leadership, executive and legislative control of its budget, and legislative discretion over its enabling law) is also the mechanisms through which incumbent political elites have periodically sought to shape its conduct. This paper offers a contextual exposition of Nigeria's electoral governance through the lens of political, or incumbent, state capture: the systematic redirection of a nominally independent institution's rules, personnel and resources to serve the governing party rather than the public good, achieved predominantly through the lawful but self-interested exercise of constitutional powers rather than through illicit payment. The paper explicitly defends this adaptation of a concept that originated in the study of private economic actors in post-Soviet economies, and distinguishes it from the adjacent notions of incumbent advantage, executive aggrandisement and weak institutional insulation. Adopting a qualitative, doctrinal and documentary methodology, it examines four sites at which capture risk concentrates: the appointment and removal of INEC's leadership, including the 2023 Resident Electoral Commissioner controversy and the 2025 transition from Mahmood Yakubu to Joash Amupitan; the Commission's financial dependence on annual appropriation; the legislative politics of electoral law-making, culminating in the National Assembly's 2026 retention of INEC's discretion over electronic result transmission; and the judicial interpretation of that discretion in the 2023 presidential election petitions. The paper finds that INEC's de jure independence is persistently undercut by de facto dependence at each of these sites. It concludes with four reforms, each assessed for its legal route, institutional mechanism and comparative precedent: direct first-line-charge funding, a panel-based appointment mechanism, mandatory real-time result transmission, and time-bound legislative review of observer recommendations.