Former President Goodluck Jonathan has called on the National Assembly to review the country’s electoral litigation process.

Speaking in Abuja on Wednesday during the 70th birthday and book launch of Gbenga Daniel, senator for Ogun East, Jonathan criticised Nigeria’s multi-layered election tribunal system.

He advised the country to establish a “constitutional court” to streamline election-related cases, describing how burdensome it is for elections to be determined after going through the Tribunal, the Court of Appeal, and finally the Supreme Court.

Recalling an incident in 2011, he said, “I remember a particular case where someone lost an election as a governor because the law then stipulated the use of red ink to tick voters’ names.”

“In an entire senatorial district, they were not provided with red pens and used available black or green pens.

“As a result, those votes were cancelled. The appeal court upheld this, even though the lower tribunal felt that a tick is a tick.”

Jonathan commended the National Assembly for amending the law to allow governorship cases to reach the Supreme Court, but lamented that the length of litigation was not addressed.

“If the Supreme Court would continue to be the terminal court for governors’ elections, then they don’t need to go through the lower Tribunal so that it would just be one step,” he added.

“I believe the ideal thing to do, which I was considering when I was in office, was to make sure that it’s only one Tribunal that listens to any litigation relating to politics.

“This is done, especially in the Francophone countries in Africa. They have constitutional courts, anything about elections, only the constitutional courts that take decisions.”

Jonathan also called on the judiciary to be firm in its decision-making to cleanse the nation’s politics.

“Politics is like soccer and the judges are the referees. If the referee looks the other way, players will break legs or score with their hands,” he added.