BREAKING NEWS, Politics
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PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari has said that election tribunals should go beyond cancelling and ordering rerun of an election to investigating and prosecuting those indicted for electoral offences.
Buhari said this on Monday, November 9, at the State House Abuja while swearing in Mahmood Yakubu, a professor of political science as the new chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, and five national commissioners of the commission.
The president said anyone found to have committed electoral malpractice, whether individuals, candidates or party agents, including institutions such as political parties or electoral body; or public officers like electoral staff and security agents, must be made to face prosecution.
He said it was time for the country’s justice system to address the shortcomings in the justice administration of the electoral tribunals.
Buhari also said that perpetrators of electoral violence and thuggery should not be spared, saying until the system stopped covering up all forms of electoral malpractice, Nigeria could hardly get it right.
The president said despite the federal government’s constitutional constraints in its engagement with the states’ electoral bodies, his administration was ready to discharge its social responsibility to protect the democratic rights of all Nigerians. “It is totally unacceptable to hide under the cover of the technicality of law to deny the citizens’ (their) rights,” Buhari said.
He said his government was considering a different strategy of engagement with state governments on how to make state electoral commissions more independent.
“In almost all the states, the party of the sitting government wins all the council elections, while there is nothing wrong with that if it is the true wish of the people, but majority of Nigerians more often than not think it is not, hence have little respect for the outcome of our council elections. This is responsible for questioning the integrity of such election winners throughout their tenure,” he said.
— Nov 10, 2015 @ 20:05 GMT
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