Commonwealth election observation and Nigeria: a study of the 2015 and 2019 elections

Since the emergence of Nigeria's Fourth Republic in 1999, foreign election observers have become a common feature in the country. This article, exploring a stakeholders' ecosystem approach, is an overview of the Commonwealth Observer Group's (COG) election reports for Nigeria in 2015 and 2019. The article sets out to achieve two objectives: (i) to highlight and compare the critical aspects of both reports, and (ii) to explain the extent to which they can contribute to improving future elections. The article concludes that the COG reports for both elections appear not to diverge in many instances, although there are small points of difference. Yet, while both reports remain useful reference documents for understanding the two elections, they appear also to fall short of their ultimate goal - i.e. to improve future elections.