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The passage of a bill establishing Electoral Offences Commission by the Senate is commendable. The Commission shall, among others, investigate electoral offences, prosecute electoral offenders, maintain records of all persons investigated and prosecuted, and adopt measures to prevent, minimise and eradicate electoral offences in the country.
According to the bill, any candidate or agent who damages or snatches ballot boxes, ballot papers or election materials before, during and after an election without the permission of the election official in charge of the polling station, shall be jailed for 20 years or fined N40 million.
The bill also provides that whoever sells ballot papers, voter card, or in possession of any voter card bearing the name of another person, or prepares and prints a document or paper purporting to be a register of voters or a voter card is liable to 10 years imprisonment when convicted.
Besides, any security personnel or election official engaged by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) or state electoral commission who attempts to influence the outcome of an election is liable to at least 15 years jail term or N30 million fine. What gave rise to this bill, according to the Chairman of the Senate Committee on INEC, Senator Kabiru Gaya, is INEC’s inability to prosecute electoral offenders in accordance with the provisions of Sections 149 and 150(2) of the Electoral Act (as amended). He said INEC couldn’t prosecute even one per cent of about 870,000 and over 900,000 alleged electoral offences in the 2011 and 2015 elections.
In 2011, over 800 people were killed in post-election violence across northern cities. In 2015, about 100 people died from election-related violence. In 2019, many electoral offences, especially political violence, marred the general election. Soldiers and policemen helped in perpetrating the violence. At Ago and Okota areas of Lagos, for instance, thugs invaded some polling booths, snatched ballot boxes and set them ablaze in the full glare of policemen. Nothing much happened to bring the culprits to book. In Kogi State, a female chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mrs. Salome Abuh, was burnt alive by suspected political thugs after the governorship election that took place in that state in 2019. Generally, over 620 people were reportedly killed in election-related violence in 2019 in different parts of the country. INEC was forced to cancel and hold supplementary elections later in some states like Kano and Rivers.
Part of what causes this violence is the ‘do-or-die’ nature of our politics. Government largely controls the resources of the nation. Hence, the struggle to be at the corridors of power is fierce because a lot of people regard politics as a huge investment. They seek public office not to serve the people but to enrich themselves.
Besides, security agents, sometimes, are not neutral in election matters. They tend to tacitly support the ruling party to the detriment of the opposition because it is the President who appoints security chiefs and could fire them anytime he likes. This fuels violence during elections.
Electoral violence is not peculiar to Nigeria. A good number of African countries, such as Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, and Chad have witnessed violence in some of their polls. In the lead-up to the Belarusian presidential election in August 2020, there were massive protests arising from the arrest of opposition candidates and party members by President Victor Lukashenko’s government.
Even some advanced democracies like the United States (US) are not immune to election-related violence. On January 6, 2021, there was an insurrection at the US Capitol engendered mainly by former President Donald Trump’s loss of the presidential election in November 2020. Five people were killed in the riot. The incident sent shockwaves across the world.
Nevertheless, the difference between advanced democracies and Nigeria is that they have institutionalised checks against electoral infractions. But in Nigeria, people commit them with impunity. That was why the US, last year, placed travel restrictions on Nigerians who operated with impunity and undermined democratic process. The action was a follow-up to a decision in January 2019 to ban individuals involved in electoral violence from entering the US.
We hope that the narrative is going to change now that the Electoral Offences Commission Bill has been passed. One thing is to have a law; another thing is to enforce it. Politicians should know that all eyes are on them now. We cannot continue to allow thugs to mess up our elections which should ordinarily be the hallmark and celebration of democracy.
It is also hoped that the bill will help to sanitise our electoral process, especially the Anambra governorship election that is a few months away and the general election coming up in 2023. Once somebody is convicted and jailed, it will send a signal to others that it is not going to be business as usual. We urge President Muhammadu Buhari to sign the bill into law.
