Elections: INEC berates parties for fielding ex-convicts, certificate forgers

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Tuesday berated some of the nation’s registered political parties for not carrying out due diligence in the choice of candidates they push forward to represent them at elections.

The Chairman of the Commission, Professor Mahmud Yakubu, who said this in Abuja, noted with regrets that the trend had even led to some of the parties nominating ex-convicts as candidates.

Yakubu, who lamented that INEC has no power to reject such candidates, pointed out that such development usually lead to the court to nullifying such election after they have been conducted.

The INEC chairman spoke at the presentation of second Strategic Plan and Strategic Programme of Action, 2017 – 2021‎, to election stakeholders in Abuja.

He further accused political parties of fielding some persons with questionable characters as candidates for elections.

He said: “It has also been observed that some parties have nominated ex-convicts as candidates and INEC has no power to reject such candidates only for court to nullify such election after they have been conducted.

“Some have even nominated candidates with cases of certificate forgery only for the court to nullify the election.

“Some ‎persons who emerged as candidates at party primaries shouldn’t have (won) if the parties had conducted due diligence on them before the primaries.

“If political parties had carried out due diligence on their candidates, we will never have the kind of problems we have with numerous elections being nullified on account of improper conduct of party primaries.

“Under these cases, INEC has been made to conduct fresh elections”.

Prof. Yakubu ‎disclosed that the commission is handicapped by the provisions of the law to reject such candidates, noting that‎ “Under the electoral law, if the national leadership of the party submits a candidate’s name to the commission, INEC cannot reject it once the person is duly nominated by his or her political party, and the law hasn’t changed.‎”

He therefore appealed ‎to the leadership of political parties to carry out due diligence on their candidates before forwarding their names to the commission, and to as well, respect the rules on guiding the conduct of party primaries‎.

Prof. Yakubu disclosed that although‎ INEC is saddled with the responsibility to prosecute electoral offenders but regretted that the commission is faced with some challenges to carry out this function.

“When you want to make arrest of electoral offenders, the commission has no police to make the arrest.

“Secondly, we have to investigate it so that you can have evidences that will make for successful persecution. We have no powers under the law to conduct investigation. So how do we successfully prosecute?

“That is why I said consistently that this country needs a special electoral offenses tribunal which every violator of electoral law will be subjected to, be it the INEC staff or any other person. This is the solution so that if you violate the electoral law, you know that there will be justice for whoever is involved,” he explained.

The commission stated in second Strategic Plan that it would establish a department which will be staffed by trained prosecutors, for quicker and more efficient prosecution of electoral offenders.

Prof. Yakubu also disclosed that the commission would experiment the electronic voting recently passed by the Senate in the forthcoming local government election in Kaduna State.

He added that INEC is waiting for that to happen before using it in future elections.

The Strategic Plan and‎ Strategic Plan of Action will guide the conduct of the 2019 general election.

Dr. Otive Igbuzor, who presented the draft plan, ‎said it was based on the review of the 2012 – 2016 strategic plan and consultations with the people on the field.

The theme of the conference was “Consolidating free, fair and credible elections.”