Recently, the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Mahmood Yakubu; his predecessor, Prof. Attahiru Jega, and the body of all political parties in Nigeria, the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC) reiterated calls for the establishment of a commission to tackle the perennial infractions that plague the nation’s electoral process. Yakubu posited that setting up an Electoral Offences Commission would give INEC the leverage and flexibility to focus on its core mandate of conducting elections and attending to post-election issues.
Before the just enacted Electoral Act, it had been part of INEC’s task to prosecute electoral offenders. An assignment that was complicated by its lack of the power to arrest and investigate. The enormity of this aspect of its job is considered so huge that part of its core mandate was left undone or not done as efficiently as it would have wanted.
It is with this as backdrop that the electoral body, at any given opportunity, makes case for a separate body to be empowered by law to arrest, investigate and prosecute electoral offenders. At a recent meeting with the Residential Electoral Commissioners (REC), the INEC chief pointed out that since 2015, the commission had only received a total of 149 case files, including 16 cases arising from the 2019 general election.
According to him, some of the cases were dismissed for want of diligent prosecution while in some states, the attorneys-general entered no-case submission to get the alleged offenders off the hook.
He said even where the commission recorded the most successful prosecution of electoral offenders following the violence witnessed in a bye-election in Kano State in 2016, it is unclear how many of the 40 offenders sentenced to prison with the option of fine actually spent time in jail.
It was reported that about 870,000 persons were arrested for electoral offences following the 2011 general elections, over 900,000 in 2015 and 1,119 in 2019. It is doubtful if INEC had managed to prosecute up to one percent of this figure.
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Contributing to this matter, former INEC boss, Professor Jega, said if Electoral Offences Commission is established to focus on specific objectives, like the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), it will greatly improve the integrity of elections in the country.
The Senate, seeing the obvious need for this body, in July 2021, passed a bill that seeks to establish an Electoral Offences Commission. The bill, if signed into law by the president, will empower the commission to investigate electoral offences, prosecute electoral offenders and maintain records of all persons investigated and prosecuted. The legislation also prescribes a 20-year jail term for offenders found guilty of snatching ballot boxes during elections.
Among other provisions, it also proposes that any candidate or agent who damages or snatches ballot boxes, ballot papers or election materials before, during and after an election without the permission of the election official in charge of the polling station, shall be jailed for 20 years or fined N40 million.
In passing the bill, the Senate said it was unrealistic to expect INEC to conduct free, fair and credible election and simultaneously prosecute offences and offenders arising from the same elections.
As a newspaper, we acknowledge that INEC has its hands full with sensitive duties, including conducting elections, registering political parties, conducting voter registration, and conducting civic and voter education, among others.
We are, however, concerned that many persons who should be in jail for undermining the nation’s electoral system through various infractions, ranging from civil to criminal offences, had been allowed to go scot-free due to the absence of the appropriate government platforms to make them account for their crimes. Due to this lacuna, many of those who partook in various breaches in earlier elections may have been involved in wreaking havoc during subsequent elections for the simple fact they were not punished for their earlier offences.
It is, therefore, our considered opinion that the Electoral Offences Commission and Tribunal will help to dispense justice dispassionately and speedily in the same way that the Electoral Court deals with violators in other countries such as South Africa.
As President Muhammadu Buhari has often demonstrated his desire to leave a better electoral system as his legacy by signing into law a new electoral bill, he should go ahead to, not only sign the Election Offences Commission Bill into law but also allocate the necessary resources towards setting up the body ahead of the 2023 general elections.
We believe that this will produce the necessary deterrence to election manipulation and give the nation a better chance of having free, fair and peaceful polls.
