How politicians ruined 2019 elections, by INEC chair, IGP, others

Politicians and their agents are responsible for the large scale
malpractices and widespread violence that marred the 2019 general
elections.

This was the submission of the chairman of the Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Mahmood Yakubu; Acting
Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu and President of the
Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Ayuba Wabba among other
stakeholders.

They spoke on Wednesday in Abuja at the Forum of Anti-corruption
Situation Room organised by the Human and Environmental Development
Agenda (HEDA).

In a keynote address, Yakubu said vote buying and selling have
become a source of great worry to the Commission, the Nigerian
people and the international community.

The INEC chair, who was represented by the National Commissioner
and Chairman, Information and Voter Education, Mr. Festus Okoye,
narrated how politicians and their agents devised various methods
to compromise the electoral process.

According to him, one of the methods employed by the politicians
and their agents was to buy up Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) of
registered voters in the political “safe haven” of their opponents
before the day of election.

He also accused them of compromising security agents and some ad
hoc staff of INEC who looked the other way while votes were being
bought and sold.

Yakubu said some political money bags bought over agents of
other political parties who compromised and betrayed their own
political parties for money.

The INEC chairman also cited situations where voters were made
to surrender their PVCs to middlemen as a precondition for
assessing government amenities and facilities in their
localities.

“Politicians compromised traditional and religious leaders and
community leaders by persuading them to persuade voters in their
domains to vote in a particular way.

“In some instances, they persuaded willing ad hoc staff to
abandon the use of Smart Card Readers and provision of social
amenities close to Election Day,” Yakubu added.

The INEC chief charged the various Election Petitions Tribunals
to prosecute proven cases of electoral offences pending the
establishment of a designated body for that purpose.

Acting IGP Adamu said police personnel on election duty were
constrained by the law, which prevented them from bearing firearms
around voting areas.

The IGP, who was represented by Assistant Inspector General of
Police, Mr. Peter Ogunyanwo, said this made it impossible for
police personnel on election duties to confront heavily armed
political thugs who attacked voters and disrupted voting at polling
centres in different parts of the country during the 2019
elections.

He lamented politicians lacked patriotism, nationalism and the
fear of God in their conduct during elections.

He lamented politicians, who he described as beneficiaries of
electoral malpractices, lacked the required will and patriotism to
put in place the needed electoral reforms.

According to him, measures prescribed by law to punish electoral
offenders were not punitive enough to deter electoral
offenders.

He cited the provision of Section 308 of the Constitution which
confers immunity from prosecution on sitting governors and their
deputies when they commit offences.

The AIG made allusions to the Rivers and Kano states where the
sitting governor and deputy governor respectively committed
electoral infractions during the March 9 governorship election but
could not be prosecuted as a result of their constitutional
immunity.

“In some cases, the law prescribes a fine of N40 as punishment
for people caught with unlawful possession of firearms and other
dangerous weapons. So where do we go from here?”

The police chief also blamed greed and stupidity on the part of
voters who sell their votes to desperate politicians, saying they
end up going back to their squalid conditions afterwards.

He called on civil society groups human rights organisations to
mobilise for other segments of the public to mount pressure on the
National Assembly to ensure birth of electoral reforms that will
prescribe stiff penalties for electoral offenders.

NLC President, Ayuba Wabba blamed vote buying and selling on
pervasive poverty in the land.

According to him, most of the voters could not resist monetary
offers for their votes by desperate politicians.

He bemoaned a situation where some state governments pay civil
servants, particularly teachers as little as N7,000 monthly
salary.

Describing the electoral process in the country as work in
progress, Wabba noted having realised that votes count, politicians
have resorted to vote buying from impoverished voters.

The NLC noted that there is no way a compromised electoral
process can produce transparent and competent leaders or good
governance.

The situation, he said, has made it impossible for the people to
hold their leaders accountable and called for drastic electoral
reforms to sanitise the process.

Activist lawyer, Femi Falana, who was chairman of the event,
canvased electronic voting as solution to electoral malpractice,
saying the country was ripe enough for it.

According to him, vote buying and ballot manipulation started in
2003 with former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the situation has
continued to escalate with every election circle.

He blamed the Election Petitions Tribunals and the courts for
condoning electoral practices where billions were raised for the
election of individuals against the provisions of the Electoral
Act.

Court Jails Economics Graduate for
Impersonation

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ibadan zonal
office, has secured the conviction of an Economics graduate from a
public university in Southwest Nigeria, Fredrick Shuaibu, for
criminal impersonation.

Fredrick was convicted and sentenced to four months imprisonment
on Wednesday, April 10, 2019 by Justice Watilat Ibrahim of a
Federal High Court in Abeokuta, Ogun State after pleading guilty to
an amended one-count charge of fraudulent impersonation.

He was said to have used the computer and network system to
fraudulently impersonate one Kristen Polochak, a white female, via
his email KristenPolochak@gmail.com, using same to dupe one Jim
Fletcher of a sum of $1,000.

The offence, according to the charge sheet, was contrary to
Section 22 (3) (b) and punishable under Section 22 (4) of the Cyber
Crimes (Prohibition, Prevention Etc) Act, 2015.

The convict was originally arraigned on December 10, 2018 on a
five-count charge. But the charges were dropped when he opted for a
plea bargain.

Mabas Mabur, EFCC’s counsel, thereafter prayed the court to
convict him based on the plea bargain agreement signed by both
parties.

After considering the terms of the plea bargain, the presiding
judge convicted and sentenced Fredrick to four months imprisonment
with effect from the day he was arrested by the EFCC.

The court also ordered that he restitutes to his victim the sum
of $1,000.

He was also to forfeit to the Federal Government his HP laptop,
a Macbook, one iPhone 6 mobile phone, one power bank, three MTN SIM
cards, being part of the benefits he derived from his fraudulent
acts.

Tony Orilade
Ag. Head, Media & Publicity
April 10, 2019