Three electoral offenders from 2023 poll convicted, says INEC

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it has secured the convictions of three electoral offenders from the 2023 general election.

Mary Nkem, INEC director of voter education and publicity, disclosed this on Tuesday at a roundtable for the media and civil society organisations (CSOs) on ‘re-examining the role of critical stakeholders in rebuilding trust in the electoral processes and institutions’.

The roundtable was organised by the international press council (IPC) under the European-union support to democratic governance in Nigeria (EU-SDGN II) project.

Speaking on the arrest of electoral offenders, Nkem said contrary to popular belief, the commission does not have the power to arrest.

She said INEC could only pursue the conviction of electoral offenders after they have been arrested and investigated by relevant security agencies.

The director added that for the 2023 general election, three offenders have so far been convicted.

“Election is a multi stakeholder affair. If INEC plays its part and another stakeholder fails to play its part, there will be issues,” she said.

“When we have elections and people default, there are agencies that have the responsibility to make arrests.

“What the commission does is, after the offenders have been arrested and investigated, the agencies will send the file of those found culpable to the commission. The commission then takes action.

“It will interest you to know that for the 2023 general election, we received some case files of electoral offenders and they have been prosecuted and as we speak, about 19 case files were prepared for prosecution and filed for various jurisdiction of courts in Nigeria, three have been completed and convictions secured for the three of them.”

Also speaking at the event, Lanre Arogundade, executive director of the IPC, said the 2023 elections came with unexpected challenges, even though significant milestones were achieved.

He said the challenges led to extensive observations from national and international observers, which partly reflected waning public confidence and trust in the electoral process.

“IPC’s media monitoring activity of 20 print/online media and INEC social media over the past one year has revealed some elements of negative perception by some citizens about the electoral processes and outcomes while there are those who hold that things were not as bad as portrayed,” he said.

“In general however, the observations show that we election stakeholders still have much work to do individually and collectively to rebuild trust.”