INEC plans stifer penalty for election ofenders
The Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC), Prof Mahmud Yakubu, has expressed serious concern over violence during elections. Yakubu pointed out on Wednesday, in Abuja, that the commission was now seeking ways of curtailing that. The INEC Chairman stated this during a parley with leaders of political parties in Abuja. According to him, “as long as electoral offenders are not dealt, severely, with, this cycle is likely to continue”. He hinted that INEC may seek stiffer penalty for perpetrators of election offences.
The two recent elections conducted by the commission in Kogi and Bayelsa States were declared inconclusive due to violence that tended to mar the electoral process. The Commission, he further said, was exploring the possibility of adopting simultaneous accreditation and voting pattern it used in the January 9 Supplementary Election in Southern Ijaw Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, in the conduct of future elections.
The 2010 Electoral Act (as amended) stipulates a maximum penalty of N1 million fine or 12 months imprisonment for perpetrators of electoral violence, and in case of a political party, a fine of N2 million in the first instance and half a million for subsequent offences.
Yakubu, however, challenged the party leaders to evaluate this mechanism to determine whether they were adequate enough to nip electoral violence in the bud. He also called for a review of the peace pact signed by the 12 presidential candidates and leaders of political parties before the conduct of the 2015 general elections, as well as the deployment of security personal, to determine their effectiveness in the prevention and containment of electoral violence.
The INEC Chairman further decried the spate of nullifications of the 2015 election results, and disclosed that the agency might introduce the use of technology in the processes of collation and transmitting elections result in 2019 general elections “so that the processes would be faster and accurate.”
