‘Why electoral offenders are difficult to prosecute’

From Paul Osuyi, Asaba

Executive Director of Centre for Transparency and Accountability (CTA), a civil society group, Faith Nwadishi, has said prosecution of election offenders will continue to be a challenge with the current practice of posting police officers before and after elections.

Mrs. Nwadishi lamented that ongoing cases and officers in charge were usually not taken into consideration when posting is being affected.

“Before elections, officers are posted to a particular state and, sometimes, they arrest electoral offenders and obtain information from the offenders.

“But what happens after the election, such officers are posted out of the state, which usually stalls prosecution,” she said.

Nwadishi made the remarks in Asaba, Delta State, during the inauguration of Civil Society Organisations Observatory on the implementation of the Police Act, 2020, and the Police Trust Fund Act, 2019, and capacity building for stakeholders in the South South region by the Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Centre (RULAAC).

Nwadishi said without political will by those at the helm of affairs, efficiency and effectiveness of the police as envisaged by the Police Act 2020 will be a ruse.

She said the tranches of funds running into billions of naira which were released for police equipment contracts became controversial within the NPTF management, which led to petition, because there was no proper monitoring by CSOs.

“The most dilapidated barracks you can see in Nigeria belong to the Nigeria Police Force or their sister agencies. The reason, when a policeman engages you in a stop-and-search on routine duty, he transfers the aggression on you.

“A society deserves the service of the police because they speak for us and fight for effective policing for a better society,” she said.

Welcoming participants, Executive Director of RULAAC, Okechukwu Nwanguma, charged CSOs to conduct mid-term review of the implementation of the NPTF, if its statutory mandate must be achieved.

He said since the enactment of the trust fund, there has been no guidelines for the monitoring of the monies that have been released.

Nwanguma said monitoring of the fund by CSOs is critical in assisting policy makers and contributors in obtaining facts about fund disbursement.