The Senate on Tuesday, July 13, passed a bill to establish a National Electoral Offences Commission. The bill sponsored by Senator Abubakar Kyari and co-sponsored by the Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege and Senator Kabiru Gaya, seeks to address the investigation and prosecution of electoral offences in Nigeria. It will be recalled that the Senate held a public hearing on the bill in April 2021. The creation of an Electoral Offences Commission was one of the recommendations put forward by the Electoral Reform Committee set up by President Umaru Musa Yar\u2019Adua in August 2007 and led by Hon. Justice Muhammadu Lawal Uwais. Since then, civil society organisations and other election stakeholders have advocated for its creation to address the rising menace of electoral offences in Nigeria, in view of INEC\u2019s limited capacity to plan and conduct elections, as well as arrest, investigate and prosecute electoral offenders. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the Uwais\nCommittee\u2019s report, it recommended the establishment of an autonomous\nCommission to investigate and prosecute all electoral frauds and offences, as\nwell as enforce relevant provisions of the Electoral Act. In addition, it was\nrecommended that the Commission be empowered to introduce and maintain\ninvestigative and control techniques towards the prevention of electoral\nmalpractices and fraudulent elections, among others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The bill passed by\nthe Senate, seeks to\nestablish a Commission comprising a Chairman, a Secretary, 10 representatives\nfrom select government ministries and agencies, as well as six other Nigerians\nrepresenting each of the geo-political zones. Interestingly, at least two of\nthese geo-political zonal positions are reserved for women. The Chairman and\nmembers others than ex-officio members are to hold office for a tenure of five\nyears and may be re-appointed for a further term of five years and no more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Among others, the bill stipulates\npenalties for various classes of offences. Some of these include an\nimprisonment term of 20 years for judicial officers\nor officers of a Court\/Tribunal who pervert justice, and a fine of N30,000,000\nin lieu of an imprisonment term set for election officials and security\npersonnel; 20-year imprisonment for ballot box snatching. It also\nimposes sanctions for candidates who go above the limits placed on election\nexpenses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Generally, the bill\nseems like a good start to addressing, more decisively, the incidence of\nelectoral malpractices by providing a framework to punish offenders, to serve\nas a deterrent to potential offenders. While its passage is a welcome development, a holistic\nelectoral legal framework and far reaching electoral reforms are still required\nto consolidate the gains recorded so far in Nigeria\u2019s elections. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Senate on Tuesday, July 13, passed a bill to establish a National Electoral Offences Commission. The bill sponsored by Senator Abubakar Kyari and co-sponsored by the Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege and Senator Kabiru Gaya, seeks to address the investigation and prosecution of electoral offences in Nigeria. It will be recalled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2190,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[383,55],"class_list":["post-2186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-electoral-offences","tag-nass"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2186"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2191,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2186\/revisions\/2191"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}