INEC and the Sermon on Electoral Offenders

ATTAHIRU JEGA

The Independent National Electoral Commission’s assertions on the prosecution of electoral offenders are no longer arousing interest or enthusiasm. The commission has in the past few years made declarations to prosecute poll fraud, but such are hardly backed by concrete action. On Tuesday, INEC came up with yet another pledge to prosecute a whopping 93, 000 people in Anambra State alleged to be involved in multiple voter registration ahead of the governorship election in the state.

In April last year, the chairman of INEC Board of Electoral Institute, Professor Lai Olurode, said about one million suspects were to be prosecuted for electoral offences arising from the 2011 voter registration and general elections. But Olurode admitted that only an infinitesimal number of the offenders had been prosecuted, saying prosecuting the alleged offenders is “a big problem” because of lack of funds.

Agreed, funds could be part of the problem. But lack of political will seems obviously the greatest hindrance to the prosecution of electoral offenders in the country. INEC needs to sharpen its crime investigation mechanism to rise from the artificiality of hounding the mass of small fry in the poll fraud project to catching the big guns whose exit from the fraudulent business can make a difference.

What Nigeria needs is action on electoral fraud prosecution, not the frequent homilies from INEC on the elusive prosecution of some funnily unwieldy number of offenders.