The Federal Electoral Commission, FEC, of the United States of America where we copied our presidential system from has the main function of enforcement of campaign funding laws. This is to prevent any individuals or vested interests from “buying” government and derailing its purpose of serving the public interest.

But here in Nigeria, apart from the obtuse, generic laws and their weak enforcement mechanisms, there is no serious effort to control electoral or campaign financing and other electoral malfeasance.

Elections which define our democracy and the governments that spring from them are very weakly regulated. Political parties, candidates and their supporters freely help themselves. It is one of the drivers of corruption and bad leadership which are at the foundation of our failing state status.

The ongoing “bazaars” in the All Progressives Congress, APC, and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, say it all. The ruling APC skyrocketed its presidential expression of interest and nomination forms to N100 million, while the main opposition PDP sold theirs for N40 million.

Even in the ongoing primary elections, politicians have been mopping up scarce foreign exchange to bribe their parties’ delegates in their bids to buy the nomination processes. Successful candidates will still spend through their noses to buy votes.

Many of the aspirants who failed even after bribing their party delegates are openly demanding refunds of money spent on vote-buying. Some have taken extraordinary measures to recover the bribes after failure. Since bribery is an offence that targets both the giver and taker, how many of the self-confessed givers have been apprehended by the law enforcement agencies?

How many receivers have been prosecuted? How many ballot snatchers and their sponsors, election result falsifiers, people who attack the electoral process with arms and others who have always sought to hijack our democracy have been visited with the full weight of the law?

Our failure to pay due attention to electoral offenders has fuelled overwhelming lawlessness in the process.

Perhaps the reluctance of law enforcement agencies to pursue electoral offenders has to do with the fact that even the most highly placed elected officials and top brass of our security benefit from these crimes. That is why no one is willing to bell the cat.

It is shocking that the just-concluded round of Electoral Act amendment was unable to create the much-needed clamour for electoral offences courts which should specifically focus on punishing the traducers of our democracy.

This is why corruption and bad governance are pushing the system toward total failure. Corruption and bad governance are directly linked to the worsening insecurity in the land.

Politicians alone should no longer be left to decide on whether and when to create a punitive system for electoral offences. We must all fight for it.

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