The National Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu, has again appealed to the Senate Committee on INEC to expedite the passage of the bill for an act to establish the national electoral offences commission.
Mahmood decried that out of the 124 cases in court since 2015, only 60 convictions have been made.
The INEC boss made the appeal at a public hearing on a bill seeking to establish a National Electoral Offences Commission.
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The proposed bill that stipulates a jail term of 15 years for electoral offenders involved in snatching and destroying ballot boxes, is expected to eradicate electoral offences in the country
The INEC Chairmain who recalled several unimplemented recommendations of various electoral reforms, including the 2009 Uwais committee report on electoral reform, the Lemu committee on the 2011 post-election violence and the Nnamani committee on electoral reform of 2017, believed that the proposed bill when enacted, will punish both the offenders their sponsors.
The sponsor of the bill, Senator Abubakar Kyari, representing Borno North, said that the INEC does not have the human capacity to prosecute electoral offenders and this has increased electoral violence in the country.
The bill co- sponsored by the Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege, APC, and the Chairman, Senate Committee on INEC, Senator Kabiru Gaya, APC Kano South, also seeks an imprisonment of 20 years without an option of fine for judicial officer, or officer of a court or tribunal, found guilty of corruptly perverting electoral justice before, during and after the election.
Edited By Tunde Orebiyi
