“Any nation that does not punish election offenders is doomed.”
This was the position of the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu when he visited some offices of the national newspapers, including The Tribune, The Punch, The Nation and The Guardian.
Professor Yakubu insisted on the establishment of the Electoral Offences Commission and Tribunal as prescribed by the Justice Mohammed Uwais and Ahmed Lemu Commissions.
He said that inconclusive elections are as a result of violence and that the only way to put to rest this specter of violence is to put in place a mechanism that would seek to punish offenders.
“There are people who believe that they can do anything and get away with it,” he said, even as he said inconclusive elections have also been compounded by the recent evolution of two strong parties “as opposed to the past where we had one mega party and smaller ones.”
The INEC Boss said that the import of this evolution of two formidable parties is that the contestation for political office is keener and the margins between the winners and runner ups is so narrow that any incidents of violence could mar the elections and render them inconclusive. Professor Yakubu cited the instance of the last presidential election where the margin between the winner and the runner up was 2.5 million and a Councillorship election in Gwagwalada, in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), where the winner out bested his runner up with a mere eleven votes.
“The days of landslide election victory are gone, and gone for good.”
Professor Yakubu who traced the history of inconclusive elections to the 1979 presidential election observed, however, that inconclusive elections are not strange to our laws.
The INEC Chairman said that logistics which used to be one of the perennial Achilles heels of the Commission and that such has been addressed squarely by the creation of SUPER RACs.
He said that the consequence of this is that the Commission recorded 92 percent opening of Polling Units on Election Day in the Kogi governorship election and 100 percent in the recent Ife and Minjibir Constituency bye elections in Oyo and Kano States respectively.
He expressed optimism that following representations made by the Commission to the Presidency, the outstanding six National Commissioners and twenty-one Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) would soon be appointed to replace those whose tenures have lapsed. He stressed that the prerogative of nominating or appointing the Commissioners was that of the President.
Professor Yakubu disclosed that so far, not less than one hundred staff of the Commission have been invited by the EFCC and that based on revelations, the number kept increasing.
“So far, over a hundred staff of INEC had been invited. At a point, we toyed with the idea of speaking to the EFCC to see the weight of evidence they have so that we can take administrative action against our staff, but they are innocent until they are proven guilty. They have to be charged to court, but we have taken notice and we have a complete list.”
He said that the Commission is co-operating with the EFCC and that ultimately staff who are culpable would “be shown the way out.” [myad]
