Prof. Attahiru Jega wants establishment of election offences tribunal before 2015 polls

Chairman of the Independent National
Electoral Commission, INEC, Professor
Attahiru Jega, has renewed calls for the
establishment of an electoral offences
tribunal before the 2015 general
elections.
Jega made the call during a debate on
ethics and elections organised by the
Friedrich Ebert Foundation on Tuesday
in Abuja.
The chairman said the tribunal would
help restore sanity to the country's
electoral process and deter people from
committing electoral offences.
Jega said: "I was privileged to serve in
the Justice Muhammad Lawal Uwais-led
Committee and I know we made a
recommendation for the establishment
of a tribunal to deal with the impunity
in the way electoral offences are being
committed in Nigeria.
"We need to do something unique and
that is to establish an electoral offences
tribunal which will be saddled with the
responsibility of arrest, investigation
and prosecution of offenders."
Jega said that in the 2011 general
elections, the commission detected
870,000 cases of multiple registrations
out of the 73.5 million voters
registered.
Jega
He, however, expressed regrets that
only 270 offenders had been
prosecuted by the body till date.
The chairman blamed poor funding and
inadequate staff for the commission's
low performance in the prosecution of
electoral offenders.
He said: "In INEC we have a very small
legal department and for us to
effectively have legal representation in
cases of election petitions, we have to
employ legal practitioners outside of
that.
"We simply do not have the resources
to prosecute; we have done our best
but what we have done is just a drop in
the ocean."
On the November gubernatorial election
in Anambra, Mr. Jega said the
commission had set out modalities for
continuous voter registration, adding
that the prosecution of those caught in
multiple registration had begun.
He promised that the modalities put in
place by the commission would serve as
a deterrent to people with the intention
of indulging in multiple voter
registration.
The INEC boss also said that continuous
voter registration would be launched
nationwide before the end of the year.
"We will prosecute offenders in each
state but this will be done selectively
because of the challenges of funding
and the evidence that have been
gathered by the police," he said.
Jega said that the commission had set
up a unit that would monitor campaign
financing ahead of 215 elections.
"As we move towards 2015, we should
have more effective monitoring of the
use of money in politics," he said.
Also speaking, Muthori Wangai, the
Chairman, Independent Electoral and
Boundaries Commission of Kenya,
urged African countries to invest in
institutions that would enhance the
success of the electoral process.
Mr. Wangai said: "as we invest in the
independent commissions, we invest
also in the bodies that affect the
electoral process and one of them is the
judiciary and the judicial system in its
entirety.
"It is important for us to think about
improving the capacity to take action
when the electoral system is abused."
Another discussant, Francis Oke, from
the ECOWAS Electoral Assistance Unit,
urged African countries to invest more
in the financing of elections and depend
less on funds from foreign donors.