The need for a stiff legal framework to tackle election offenders was widely canvassed during the sittings of the Justice Mohammed Uwais Panel set up by the late President Umaru Yar’Adua to address evils dogging our electoral processes.

It has taken all of 14 years for our federal lawmakers to positively respond to the need to pay particular attention election offenders. The incumbent Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, has been an ardent campaigner for the establishment of an electoral offences commission especially dedicated to fight election criminals.

In addition to our support for this initiative, Vanguard Newspapers has also advocated the establishment of a special court to try these suspects and quickly bring them to justice to show our zero tolerance for criminality around our elections. We believe that crime-free elections are watersheds for functional democracies and accountable governments.

When the genuine choice of the people prevails, leaders will have no choice but to put in their best. It truly puts power in the hands of the people. It produces the proverbial “dividends of democracy” and propels the society forward.

An electoral system where crime is not punished produces more crime. For instance, there were 870,000 documented electoral offences in 2011 and over 900,000 cases in 2015, yet these elections were declared “free and fair”. According to the Senate Committee on INEC led by Senator Kabiru Gaya, INEC was unable to prosecute “even one per cent” of these violators.

In an electoral arrangement where there is little deterrence, power play becomes a criminal enterprise where only the most devious, violent and anti-people elements can win elections. This has been the feature of our democracy in Nigeria for long. Political assassinations, the use of weapons (especially firearms), ballot snatching, thuggery, vote-buying and other malfeasances have freely been deployed to steal the vote.

INEC has been unable to tackle electoral offences because it is not a law enforcement agency. It is an electoral umpire and regulator. The amount of work on INEC’s table is too humongous for it to carry the additional burden of electoral law enforcement. The huge number of suspects that every election produces requires a especially dedicated law enforcement arrangement to make our elections no go areas for criminals.

It is unfortunate that the National Assembly has suddenly woken up to the need to create this investigative and prosecutorial body just when the campaigns for the 2023 elections have officially begun. We advise the lawmakers to ensure that law is adequate to punish not just the electoral street criminals but also their sponsors. They should also strongly consider the establishment of a special court for election offences. Elections are too important to be treated with levity.