Penalising electoral law violators

In Imo State, officials of the Department of State Security (DSS) said they arrested 16 members of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for allegedly altering the result sheets of the governorship election to match the figures allotted to them by some political parties.The police also arrested 20 people for various electoral offences in Akwa […]

In Imo State, officials of the Department of State Security (DSS) said they arrested 16 members of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for allegedly altering the result sheets of the governorship election to match the figures allotted to them by some political parties.
The police also arrested 20 people for various electoral offences in Akwa Ibom State during Presidential and National Assembly elections.
 In Ebonyi State, a man was arrested with a trove of 300 permanent voter cards (PVCs), a violation of the law. 104 people were arrested in Rivers State for electoral offences in the Port Harcourt area alone. The police said many PVCs were found on them, and they were in possession of electoral materials, even though they were not electoral officers or party election agents, and carried dangerous weapons.
A governorship candidate was arrested in Zamfara State for alleged ballot box snatching. Thirteen people were arrested in Edo State, while five were arrested in Osun State for electoral offences.
Only in the last week’s re-run governorship election in Imo State, Senator Hope Uzodinma was briefly arrested, along with two relations, for thumb-printing of ballot paper in a private residence.
Despite intense public enlightenment that the smartcard readers used in the elections this year were fool-proof, and repeated warnings against multiple registration among others , people still went ahead to do exactly that, breaking the law. A strong foundation has been erected to make elections in Nigeria smoother and their outcomes less acrimonious. It builds on efforts made in the past.  But example must be made of those involved in this year’s election offences by invoking the law on them and ensuring that they are sanctioned.
No one should be above being sanctioned; whoever is caught, no matter how highly placed should face the full wrath of the law.
According to the electoral law, anyone in possession of more than one valid voter’s card, for instance, is liable on conviction to a fine of N100,000 or 12 months’ imprisonment, or both.
For the law to be effective, arguments have been advanced for the establishment of Election Offences Tribunal to complement the already existing Election Petition Tribunal to try those specific cases.  
The importance of the matter calls for this special court to sanitise the electoral environment and further improve on the growing confidence in the electoral process. Such courts, even if they are to be for a specified period, would devote their resources to handling electoral offences, and thus decongest, for the time being at least, the burdensome workload that currently choke the regular court system.
The suggestion is not new. In 2013, the Chairman of INEC, Professor Attahiru Jega, in 2011 called for the establishment of such a tribunal before this year’s general elections, but the attention of members of the National Assembly, who should give fillip to such matters, was focused on something else. INEC had detected 870,000 cases of multiple registrations out of the 73.5 million voters registered in 2011.
Jega had said the tribunal would help to restore sanity to the country’s electoral process and discourage people from committing electoral offences.
It is instructive that President-elect Muhammadu Buhari has taken the position that all those engaged in rigging and other electoral offences must be punished.
He is in a position now to influence and advance efforts at cleaning up the electoral system for good. Electoral cheats should not go unpunished.