Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) has expressed worries over the failure of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to prosecute electoral offenders in the country.
Speaking on Wednesday at the post-election assessment and review forum on human rights in the 2023 general elections, organised by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in Abuja, the Chairman, of the Governing Council of the Human Rights Institute of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), Chinonye Obiagwu (SAN) urged INEC to discharge its official responsibilities efficiently.
In a goodwill message at the forum, the Senior lawyer who disclosed that the NBA mobilised over a thousand election observers across the country during the 2023 general elections said one issue that the NBA is concerned about is, “Electoral offence, which INEC has not done anything about.
“Since the conclusion of the election, nobody has been prosecuted by INEC for the electoral offence”, he said and urged the electoral body to work with security agencies to investigate and prosecute electoral offenders.
While noting that other matters pending in courts suffer because of election matters, which are usually given the utmost attention, Obiagwu called for the setting up of an Electoral Offenses Commission to tackle the challenges of electoral offences during elections.
The Police Service Commission, (PSC), represented by the Director, Legal of the Commission, Mr. Dada Babatunde, said the outcome of the 2023 general and off-circle elections show that there was a commendable improvement in the electoral process of the country.
According to him, there is a lot of improvement in the conduct and actions of the Nigeria Police in the area of protection of human rights during the elections.
Earlier in his speech, the executive secretary of the NHRC, Dr. Tony Ojukwu (SAN) said, the 2023 general elections provided Nigerians the opportunity to advance the country’s democracy and to implement the reforms that have been introduced in the Electoral Act of 2022.
The elections, he said, were characterized by many challenges, including reported cases of disenfranchisement, voter intimidation, violence on electorates and electoral staff, allegations of result manipulations and other electoral vices.
Ojukwu said, the periods leading to the elections witnessed prolonged campaigns, the longest in Nigeria’s democratic history and characterized by hate speeches and heightened political tension adding that, human rights violations by state and non-state actors characterized political activities leading to the elections, on election day and after the polls.
The role of the NHRC in the 2023 general elections, he said, focused on the mobilisation for election, officially launched on the 17th of October, 2022 to promote voter participation and access in the electoral process through citizens’ education for PVC collection and voting, advocating human rights and issue-based campaigns for political parties and candidates, monitoring, countering and reporting the use of hate speech before, during and after the 2023 general elections, among others.
The NHRC boss said, that since the return to democracy in 1999, the Commission has been playing a fundamental role in advancing Nigeria’s democracy through the development of programmes aimed at integrating human rights into the electoral process and supporting democratic institutions and election management bodies to deliver on their mandates.
The Commission’s role in this regard, Ojukwu said, is founded on the recognition of the importance of the consolidation of democracy in the realization of all human rights in Nigeria.
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