Executive Director, Centre for Transparency Advocacy (CTA), Faith Nwadishi, has said there is a need for Nigeria to set up an Electoral Offences Commission to prosecute electoral offenders.
Nwadishi spoke to newsmen during the launching of three reports: the ‘2023 General Elections; Perception Study on Citizens Understanding of the Mandate of INEC’; and ‘Compendium on the 2019 General Elections and Off Season Elections from 2019 to 2022’ on Thursday in Abuja, said the commission would go a long way in reforming the nation’s electoral system.
She said: “There are some places that we recommended that they should be reviewed. For instance; the Electoral Act talks about civic and voter education responsibility given to INEC and there is a national orientation agency that should be saddled with civic education.
“We should actually take away the role of civic education from INEC and make it a voter education or an enable and empower national orientation agency to do their work. Most times you go to the communities or to the states and you find that the NOA is not properly funded so they rely on INEC to even do the voter education.
“We sent a memo to the Ninth Assembly to quickly set up the electoral offences commission. We cannot continue the way we are going; people are committing crimes and you are saying it is INEC that most prosecute does INEC have the prosecutorial powers to do that?
“Even when they now have some synergies between these agencies; we saw ICPC on the field, we saw EFCC but how effective has that been even though they’re also members. But if you have a dedicated commission that is saddled with the responsibility of prosecuting electoral offenders set examples with high profile cases, it will help go a long way to help in reforming our electoral process.”
Other areas Nwadishi noted need a review in the Electoral Act include strengthening the appointment of Resident Electoral Commissioners (REC) to avoid appointing those who would be partisan, and sanctioning political parties who do not have party agents at the polling centres.
“We should be able to hold politicians accountable. Politicians or political parties are supposed to have party agents across all polling units. Elections are won and lost at the polling unit because that is where the electorates come to cast their vote and that is where results are pronounced first before it is taken forward for coalition so if you don’t have people representing you at that level so that you will have a copy of your result so there should actually be sanctions for a politician or political party who is vying for election and is not able to deploy, party agents at that level.
“Party agents are supposed to be trusted members of your political party who are supposed to do these things as a volunteer because it is their contribution to the process but because we have monetized our political process, party agents now look for money same as ad-hoc staff.
“These are the areas we need to strengthen from the points of perspective of what we got from the citizens that we had communication with in the course of carrying out our work.”
On the three reports that were launched, Nwadishi who disclosed that they gave insights into the issues and frequently asked questions by citizens and stakeholders, maintained that despite the challenges in the system, elections in Nigeria have improved.
“Notably, the general elections in Nigeria have been characterized by both progress and challenges. Thanks to democracy, Nigerians have been able to exercise their right to vote and elect their leaders; but concerns have been raised regarding electoral processes, election logistics, vote buying, voter intimidation, and violence among other issues during the campaign and election days.
“However, it is important to note that the electoral system in Nigeria has improved, despite ongoing challenges. Voter education programmes, regular consultations with civil society leaders, citizens and stakeholders, media Pallies and the use of technology to improve the efficiency and openness of the voting process are all part of the improvement.
“Most significantly, is the mix of political actors at the National Assembly giving a mini semblance of the mix of culture and views in Nigeria.”
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