Nigeria Can’t Have Credible Elections With Card-carrying Party Members As INEC Commissioners, RECs – Falana Tells Tinubu

Senior lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN) has charged President Bola Tinubu to ensure Nigeria has credible elections in 2027.

Speaking on Friday during an appearance on Channels TV, Falana told Tinubu that the shame of bad elections in Nigeria must stop and the buck for the responsibility lies on the President’s table.

The human rights lawyer lamented the situation where card-carrying members of a political party or a loyalist of a party are appointed to be Resident Electoral Commissioners or National Commissioners of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

According to him, there is no way INEC can conduct free and fair elections with such appointments.

He further charged Tinubu to help INEC in conducting credible elections by ensuring the recommendations of electoral reform committees are considered and implemented.

“As a matter of fact, since 2007, successive regimes in Nigeria, Yar’Adua regime, Jonathan regime and Buhari regime have all set up electoral reform committees or panels to make recommendations that will assist the government to have credible elections.

“In the case of President Tinubu, as a leader of ACN, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu set up a committee to campaign for the implementation of the recommendations of the Uwais Panel and one of them is that we must have independent umpires.

“You can’t have a card-carrying member of a political party or a loyalist of a party to be a Resident Electoral Commissioner or a National Commissioner, you complicate for INEC to have credible elections,” Falana submitted.

Judges Should Stop Determining Election Outcomes

Speaking further, Falana decried a situation where elections in Nigeria are always riddled with petitions and the courts and judges have to be the ones to decide the final winners.

He said Nigeria currently has the highest number of election petitions worldwide but this is not healthy for the country’s democracy.

He said: “We need to resolve that never again are we going to allow judges to determine or confirm the results of elections. It doesn’t happen anywhere in the world, and that is why I repeatedly challenge my colleagues; are you aware that we have the largest number election petitions in the world?

“This year we recorded the lowest number of electron petitions since 2003, we have 436 petitions, in 2019 we had 807, in 2007, the worst elections we have ever conducted in Nigeria, Nigeria recorded 1,282 petitions.”