INEC secures conviction of electoral offenders

.Worries about insecurity as IGP assures massive deployments for by-elections 

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has secured conviction of three electoral offenders, caught during the 2023 general elections.

Its Director of Voter Education and Publicity, Mary Nkem, made the revelation at a roundtable for the media and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) on ‘Re-examining the role of critical stakeholders in rebuilding trust in the electoral processes and institutions’, organised by the International Press Council (IPC) under the European-Union Support to Democratic Governance in Nigeria (EU-SDGN II) project.

Nkem, who admitted that the commission is handicapped in terms of arrest and prosecution of electoral offenders, assured that the forthcoming reruns and by-elections would be free and fair.

Her words: “It will interest you to know that most of the policies that were used for the 2023 elections emanated from the review we had of the 2019 general elections. I stand here to let you know that for the 2023 general elections, all the reports and recommendations that have been harvested, the commission will look at them critically, and implement the key ones.

“On prosecution of electoral offenders, the commission does not have the power to arrest. Election is a multi-stakeholder programme. If INEC plays its side and another stakeholder fails, there will be an issue. We don’t arrest and investigate. There are organisations that do that. We only prosecute those found culpable when we receive the files. We partner with the EFCC and ICPC.

“It will interest you to know that for the 2023 general elections, we received some case files of electoral offenders and they have been prosecuted and as we speak, about 19 case files were prepared for prosecution and filed for various jurisdiction of courts in Nigeria, three have been completed and convictions secured for the three of them.”

Meanwhile the electoral umpire has expressed worry about insecurity and threats of violence ahead of the February 3 by-elections.

The organisation said it had received reports about the impact of the prevailing insecurity in some states on conduct of the elections, worsened by incendiary remarks from political actors.

INEC Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, raised the anxiety at a meeting of the Interagency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES), yesterday, in Abuja.

According to him, from experience, the conduct of isolated elections could be very challenging.

Yakubu said the by-elections, which arose from the death, resignation of members of the national and state legislative houses or orders of courts, affect two senatorial districts, four federal and three state constituencies.

He clarified that elections would be held in 39 constituencies, translating to 2.6 per cent of the 1,491 constituencies for which elections were conducted nationwide in the 2023 general elections.

Yakubu said the commission has already provided the Nigeria Police Force, as the lead agency in election security, full information of the locations where voting would be held.

He added that INEC has similarly provided the number of registered voters and Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) collected in each polling unit.

On his part, Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Olukayode Egbetokun, said the force has conducted threat analysis in every area the elections will be held in addition to adequate deployment of security personnel.