INEC Chairman Reveals Why Election Riggers Go Unpunished

The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, has revealed why election riggers will continue to go unpunished in Nigeria.

Yakubu said until an electoral offenses commission and tribunal is established to take over the prosecution of electoral offenders from the commission, riggers will continue to go unpunished in the country.

The INEC chairman, who made this submission at a post-election review meeting with media executives in Abuja on Wednesday, noted that Nigeria’s electoral process will remain ineffective without an appropriate body to deal with electoral offenders.

He maintained that there is an urgent need for government to revisit the recommendations of electoral reforms panels headed by Justice Mohammed Uwais (rtd), Sheikh Ahmed Lemu, and Dr. Ken Nnamani, set up by Umaru Yar’Adua, Goodluck Jonathan, and Muhammadu Buhari regimes respectively, Naija News reports.

He said, “Here we are; the commission is saddled with the responsibility of prosecuting electoral offenders. I have said repeatedly that, in our case, some of the offenders may be INEC officials. How practicable is it for us to get ourselves prosecuted? That is why, consistently, committee upon committee have made recommendations since the Uwais committee of 2009, Lemu committee of 2011, and Nnamani committee of 2017 that there should be an electoral offenses commission to deal with all violators of electoral laws, whoever they are; whether voters, INEC officials or ad hoc staff.

“So, that is a practical concern. Some of the things we have been doing may not lead to successful prosecution in the manner that we are dealing with them.”