Seeks prosecution of electoral offenders
The National Chairman of the Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu, on
Friday said he was not in a position to guarantee conclusive polls in
2019 because he would not be pressured to step outside the lines of the
Constitution, the Electoral Act and the Guidelines to impress anyone.
The INEC boss, who said this last night
during an interactive session with journalists in Lagos, noted that the
conclusiveness or otherwise of any election owes greatly to the
behavioural pattern of voters, of which he has zero control, adding that
he would not dare second-guess any election.
He, however, frowned at the
non-existence of any law prosecuting electoral offenders, saying the
absence of such a provision or law has allowed for an abiding culture of
electoral malpractices responsible for some of the many hitches the
commission has been dealing with.
Dismissing the swirling assumption that
virtually all the elections conducted by the commission under his
leadership were inconclusive, Yakubu said so far since he assumed
office, the commission had concluded about 137 elections, 80 of which
were rerun and the rest were isolated polls like the Kogi and Bayelsa
States elections, including also, the recent elections into the Federal
Capital Territory.
While noting that the commission has
continued to conduct elections practically every weekend unknown to many
Nigerians, Yakubu maintained that “We won’t conclude elections at all
means. But we will only always conclude elections with regards to the
laws of the land and the Electoral Act.”
The INEC chairman, who noted that
inconclusive polls were not peculiar to his leadership, went down memory
lane to recall some of the major elections that were not concluded in
the past with resounding emphasis on the 1983 re-election of former
President Shehu Shagari, which propelled the military takeover of the
Muhammadu Buhari junta.
Although he claimed not to be proud of
such developments, Yakubu said the narratives trailing some of the
elections conducted under his watch have made it look like it had never
happened before, citing also the start of the 2011 elections, which the
former INEC chairman, Attahiru Jega had to postpone even when voting had
commenced in some parts of the country.
He, therefore, reiterated that “I can’t
guarantee conclusive elections in 2019. I cannot second-guess Nigerians
and I don’t know where they would head in 2019,” adding that he would
not step a foot outside what the laws and guidelines dictate for the
conduct of elections, urging Nigerians to work with him in ensuring that
the polls are conclusive through shared roles and responsibilities.
Continuing, Yakubu said “The Electoral
Act envisages the commission to sufficiently comply. You can’t
second-guess any election. You can’t conclude an election on behalf of
the people. The Kogi election came within two weeks that we assumed
office and with its peculiar challenge. I don’t think anyone should
blame the commission, but we found a way out.”
Identifying some of the challenges being
encountered by the commission, Yakubu said the prosecution of electoral
offenders was crucial to successful elections but noted that INEC
neither has its own police nor the capacity to investigate infractions
during elections.
He also identified threats of violence
as well as over-voting as some of the challenges that informed why some
of the elections usually turned out inconclusive. He maintained that
“every vote in Nigeria must count and every polling unit must account.
What they do at the polling units must be recognised and respected,” he
added.
In addition to some of the distractions
that the commission has had to deal with, Yakubu said his leadership met
about 680 litigations in which it was joined, adding that whilst 600 of
them were dismissed, 80 were upheld and that 80 were part of the ones
responsible for some of the reruns held so far.
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