.Hints why poll riggers aren’t sanctioned
From Okwe Obi, Abuja
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has described Bayelsa, Imo, Kogi States as difficult areas to conduct elections.
INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, stated this at the quarterly meeting with heads of media organisations, yesterday in Abuja.
Yakubu, who did not explain further on his observation, noted that there were no election season any longer because of the avalanche of elections mostly linked to resignation or deaths.
He added that the November 11, governorship polls would be different because the commission would improve on the successes recorded during the 2023 general elections.
He said: “In Nigeria today, there is no election season any longer as elections are conducted all year long. 3 weeks after the inauguration of the National and State Assembly, we have already had 4 out of season elections. One is as a result of appointment. Three is as a result of dead.
“The second one are the bye-elections. Bayelsa, Imo, Kogi, under normal circumstances, these are difficult places to conduct elections.”
The electoral umpire identified the lack of Electoral Offences Commission and Tribunal, as one of the reasons electoral offenders go scot-free.
He said the country’s electoral process would remain ineffective without proper agency to deal with electoral offenders.
According to him, Nigeria should revisit the recommendations made by the Electoral Reforms Panels headed by Justice Mohammed Uwais (rted), Sheik Ahmed Lemu and Dr. Ken Nnamani which were set up by the Umaru Yar’Adua, Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari regimes respectively.
“Here we are, the commission is saddled with the responsibility for prosecution of electoral offenders. And I’ve said this repeatedly that in our case, some of the offenders may be INEC officials.
“How practicable is it for us to get ourselves prosecuted? That’s why consistently, committee upon committee have made recommendation since the Justice Uwais committee of 2009, Lemu committee of 2011, Nnamani committee of 2017 that there should be an electoral offences commission to deal with all violators of the electoral laws, whoever they are, whether they are voters, INEC officials or adhoc staff.
“So that is a practical concern. Some of the things that we have been doing may not lead to successful prosecution in the manner that we’re dealing with them. Now let’s look at this scenario.
“You have security personnel deployed for elections. Now, during elections, take an example of a police officer posted from Abuja to say Delta State for election duties.
“That police officer then makes arrest. Immediately after the election, the policeman comes back to Abuja and in the next six months, he may be in Sokoto, but he’s the investigating police officer.
“The law says that electoral offenders should be prosecuted in the magistrate court, the High Court of state or the high court a of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) not federal high court in the state where the cause of action has risen.
“So that policeman that was moved from Abuja to then to Sokoto in a manner of speed is the investigating police officer.
“By the time you are ready to prosecute in Delta where the cause of action took place , the policeman would have lost trail of the case and might not even know where the case file is and would have made prosecution very difficult,” he said.
Meanwhile, National President, Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), Chris Isiguzo, stressed the need for stakeholders to address the issue of hate speech and misinformation by seeking ways to combat them without infringing on the principles of free speech
According to him, stakeholders must also discuss how to “ensure equitable access to media platforms for all political actors, promoting inclusivity and fair representation.”