INEC Pushes for Establishment of Special Court For Electoral Offences

By Miracle Ogunde

The Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC) has renewed call for the creation of the Electoral Offences Tribunal that have a specific jurisdiction and limited timeframe for the speedy dispensation of cases relating to electoral offences.

The INEC chair, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu decried the delay in the justice delivery system, citing the conviction of a returning officer in Akwa Ibom after six years.

Yakubu, who spoke in Abuja on Friday during the commission’s first regular quarterly consultative meeting with the media, said the move becomes important owing to the backlog of electoral offence cases.

“A major obstacle to the speedy dispensation of justice in this regard is that electoral offences are not time-bound as is the case with post-election offences through the tribunals. Furthermore, they are solely prosecuted by the Magistrate and State High Courts in the jurisdiction where the alleged offences are committed,” the INEC chief told the gathering.

“No priority attention is given to such cases as the courts deal with a variety of other cases. Consequently, electoral offences are carried over from one General Election to another which may sometimes affect the diligent prosecution of the cases. It is therefore imperative to renew our call for the creation of the Electoral Offences Tribunal that have a specific jurisdiction and limited timeframe for the speedy dispensation of cases.”

“The recent successful prosecution of a Returning Officer in Akwa Ibom State is a case in point. The Commission has been diligently pursuing the case which arose from the 2019 General Election. In this particular case, it took nearly six years to achieve the successful prosecution at the trial court,” he said.

“Through our collaboration with the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) cases involving 774 alleged offenders from the 2023 General Election are being prosecuted. So far, successful prosecutions have been recorded in Kebbi and Kogi States while our collaboration with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on vote-buying has yielded similar results in Lagos, Kwara, and Gombe States. Yet, many cases are still pending.”