Femi Falana, the human rights lawyer, says the House of
Representatives should pass the Electoral Offences Commission bill to tackle
cases of violence in the 2023 elections.
Speaking on Sunday in an interview with Channels Television,
Falana said many LGAs have reportedly been taken over by criminals.
He said it will be difficult and problematic to conduct
elections in an atmosphere that is ridden with lawlessness.
Falana said the Independent National Electoral Commission
(INEC) alone cannot carry out a successful poll, adding that the people must be
ready to defend their votes.
“There are local governments in Nigeria today, where farmers
have to pay levies imposed on them by terrorists. You can’t talk of elections
in those places,” he said.
“The members of the political class and the government will
have to sit down instead of jumping all over the place. Can we really hold
elections under an atmosphere of violence and lawlessness as we are currently
witnessing?
“Because if this trend continues, the credibility of the
elections will be questioned. Candidate will say I would have won in places
where you didn’t hold election, and that would be problematic.
“I’d like to appeal to the house representatives to pass the
Electoral Offences Commission Bill, which was passed last July by the Senate.
Surprisingly the house of representatives has not passed the bill to prosecute
electoral offences and unless we do that, the 2023 elections may be marred by
violence of unimaginable proportion.
“Right now, those who are committing electoral offences are
not being arrested or prosecuted, and that cannot continue if we want to have
good elections.
“INEC alone cannot conduct credible election. The people
themselves must go beyond organising rallies, the people themselves, beyond
attending rallies, must defend their votes. Under the new Electoral Act,
elections would be won and lost at each polling unit, and there would be
automatic transmission of results.
“We must show that we are civilised people prepared to
operate under the rule of law. We can just throw up our hands in helplessness
when there is a government in place.”
More than a year ago, the senate passed the bill
establishing the Electoral Offences Commission.
The approval followed the consideration of the report of the
senate committee on INEC.
The bill seeks to provide the legal framework to establish
and empower the National Electoral Offences Commission to investigate and
prosecute electoral offences.
It also seeks to establish the investigation, legal and
prosecution unit that will be responsible for dealing with matters connected to
mutual international assistance in criminal matters involving electoral
offences.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had
kicked against the establishment of the commission, noting that law enforcement
agencies were already empowered to investigate and prosecute electoral crimes.
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com