The English Premier League ended yesterday with Arsenal crowned champions. But that triumph almost slipped away because, two weeks earlier, a stolen goal arrived disguised as a legitimate one.
I watched the West Ham–Arsenal match of Sunday, May 10, 2026. It got me thinking about Nigeria’s past and coming elections. Deep into stoppage time, there was a crowded goalmouth scramble. The ball ended up in the Arsenal net, the referee okayed it and the stadium erupted.
But the celebration was cut short when the referee was called to the VAR monitor.
Replays showed that as the Arsenal goalkeeper leapt to claim the ball, his left arm had been held and impeded by an opposing attacker. The goal, a crucial equaliser, was ruled out for a foul.
Note that the referee initially stood by the decision. Then came protests. He paused the game, consulted technology, reviewed the incident and reversed himself. He was not stubbornly chained to an earlier error. He chose, instead, to stand by the rules of the game.
We should learn a lesson in that episode and weigh in on the relationship between sport, technology, rules and democratic accountability. A last-minute goal was first allowed, then overturned because it had been obtained unfairly.
As I watched the referee, I thought of our INEC; the VAR reminded me of IREV and the courts, and our 2023 controversies. The match officials did not manipulate the rules or sabotage the technology. There was no self-help, no front or backend glitch, and no desperate effort to protect a heist simply because a verdict had already been announced.
That is the lesson for Nigeria, its politicians and their politics, and for INEC. Democracy, like football, survives on the integrity of process. When doubts arise, institutions must have the courage to review themselves honestly and correct wrongdoing openly. A bad decision does not become sacred merely because it was confidently declared. What destroys public trust is not human error; it is the refusal to admit and correct errors.
Elections are not different from football. In Nigeria, political heists are rarely committed in the open. They happen in the confusion of numbers, in the invasion, the pushing and pulling around collation centres, in the unseen grip on institutions, and in the calculated obstruction of the people’s will. As we move towards the next elections, INEC should learn from that match. What may appear to be victory amid the noise of celebration may, upon honest review, turn out to be a foul on democracy itself.
The Nigerian voter too must approach future elections with the vigilance of a VAR room. Every suspected inflated figure, every compromised official, every act of voter suppression, every attempt to intimidate observers or mutilate result sheets is a foul hand on the goalkeeper’s wrist. It must be contested until it is redressed.
If football can pause an entire stadium and viewing centres around the world to review an unfair advantage, then a republic must be prepared to pause and review the electoral process at any point whenever the people suspect that the game has been rigged.
This is necessary if what we say we have is a democracy. Democracies do not die only through bullets and coups; they also get murdered through clever, vile manipulations hidden inside crowded political moments.
While I sat impressed by that referee obeying the laws of the game, the Federal High Court in Abuja last Wednesday nullified parts of INEC’s 2027 election timetable, ruling that portions of it violated the law. The court acted the VAR of this game. It held, among other things, that INEC cannot unilaterally fix the timetable for party primaries; cannot abridge the period within which parties submit candidates’ particulars; cannot shorten the lawful window for withdrawal or replacement of candidates; cannot publish the final list of candidates earlier than 60 days before the election; and cannot compel campaigns to end two days before voting.
In effect, the court set aside the timeframes imposed by INEC for party primaries, submission of candidates’ particulars, withdrawal and replacement of candidates, publication of final candidate lists and campaign periods.
The question is: if the Constitution and the Electoral Act are already clear on these timelines, why did INEC choose a route so far removed from the law? Whose interest was that timetable designed to serve? I read somewhere that INEC said it was reviewing that judgment. We wait to see what its reviewers have to say.
Will they say the figures in the Electoral Act are not there or, perhaps the version of the Electoral Act available to them differs from the one available to the rest of Nigeria? We wait.
Also published in the Nigerian Tribune on Monday, 25 May, 2026.
