80% Of 2011 Electoral Offenders Not Prosecuted – INEC: With the February general elections only three weeks away, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has revealed that less than 20 per cent of suspected electoral offenders during the 2011 general elections were prosecuted for their various electoral offences. INEC chairman, Prof Attahiru Jega made the revelation yesterday in his keynote address during a two-day conference on “Nigeria: 2015 Elections and Beyond”, organised by the Savannah Centre for Diplomacy, Democracy and Development (SCDDD) and the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Jega who was represented by an INEC official, Prof Lai Olurode, spoke on “INEC Ready To Go: Assessing Priority Challenges, Gaps and Contingency Plans for Nigeria’s 2015 Elections”, stating that out of over 1,000 persons arrested for electoral offences during the 2011 elections, only 211 have so far been prosecuted. “We have not been able to prosecute more than 200 electoral offenders from the 2011 elections whereas we have over 1,000,” Jega said. Former chief justice of Nigeria and chairman of the Council of the Wise, a think-tank body of the centres, Justice Mohammed Uwais, who spoke with journalists on his proposed Electoral Offences Commission, said non-passage of the Electoral Offenders Bill by the National Assembly was wholly responsible for the inability of INEC to prosecute electoral offenders. According to him, the National Assembly members may be sitting on the bill for fear of the electoral offences law coming back to haunt them. “It has become a norm in Nigeria that when committees are set up by government and the committees submit their reports, the reports don’t normally get fully implemented. That is what has become of what you call the Uwais Committee Report. “I feel disturbed because a lot of problems we are facing now could have been solved if some of the recommendations of the committee had been implemented. For instance, this morning, we heard that out of over 1,000 electoral offenders INEC is given the responsibility to prosecute, they have only been able to prosecute 211 in respect of only 2011. “Now, if you go back to our report, what we recommended was that there should be a body or agency called ‘Electoral Offences Commission’ which will be charged with the responsibility of dealing with electoral offences. But that hasn’t been implemented. You could see that if that had been done, today, we wouldn’t be talking about INEC not being able to prosecute electoral offenders. “I don’t think it is conspiracy as such, but the issue of self-preservation. A lot of the politicians who are in the National Assembly, that is the Senate and the House of Representatives, who are to create such a body, are themselves co-offenders, maybe even the brains behind the offences. So, they may feel if they do so, they may be shooting themselves in the foot, and perhaps, that is why they are not keen about implementing that recommendation,” Uwais said. The former chief justice who also spoke on the fate of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) said the situation of the IDPs may create a lacuna in the outcome of the 2015 elections. “When the Electoral Act was enacted in 2010, this sort of situation of having IDPs was not envisaged, so there is no provision in the law on how to deal with it and the constitution is also silent, but the way to go about it is to get the National Assembly to amend the Electoral Act and make provisions to make it possible for the IDPs to exercise their franchise”. He averred that the National Assembly could save the country from the impending electoral imbroglio by amending the electoral law within two days, and passing it to the president who, he said, could assent the bill within a day or two. Prof Jega who disclosed that 40million Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) have been distributed with 15million more still being awaited, assured that every eligible voter would collect his card before the election. He also said the commission would need over 700,000 ad hoc staff to enable it conduct the election in every nook and cranny of the country, adding that INEC has received all the funds needed to conclude the elections. Chairman of SCDDD, Prof Ibrahim Gambari, in his opening remarks, said the conference was their contribution to the country’s electoral development process, while the African director of the CSIS, Ms Jennifer Cooke said the INEC has a huge responsibility to deliver a hitch-free election and cannot afford to fail. Category: Product #: Regular price:$ (Sale ends !) Available from: Condition: Good ! Order now! Reviewed by on. Rating: Original link Read More goo.gl/aObqht (y) ✍comment ☏share
Posted on: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 01:22:25 +0000
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