INEC’s worries over ex-convicts

Last week’s revelation by the Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu, that political parties are wont to fielding ex-convicts and certificate forgers as candidates for elective offices is as worrisome as it is reprehensible and condemnable. This flows from the fact that the unsavoury development does not only pose a grave danger to Nigeria’s political evolution but it is also inimical to democratic ethos, civility and the attainment of nationhood.

The INEC helmsman, who made this disclosure in Abuja while fielding questions at the Stakeholders Validation Conference of the 2017-2021 Strategic Plan, blamed the political parties for failing to carry out due diligence on the candidates they often nominate during primaries.
Upon the discovery and annulment of such elections by the court, Yakubu said the commission would now be saddled with the responsibility of conducting rerun polls at great costs to the nation.
“In some cases, some of the candidates nominated shouldn’t have been nominated if the political parties carried out due diligence.

If political parties had carried out due diligence on their candidates, we will never have the kind of problems we have with numerous elections being nullified on account of improper conduct of party primaries.
“It has also been observed that some parties have nominated persons who are ex-convicts as candidates and INEC has no power to reject such candidates, only for the court to nullify such election after they have been conducted. Some have even nominated candidates with cases of certificate forgery only for the court to nullify the election.”
While stating that INEC cannot reject such duly nominated candidates by political parties, as stipulated by law, he, however, stressed that the problems and consequences associated with such nominations are the ultimate nullification on account of inappropriate nomination.

Yakubu appealed to the political parties’ leadership to respect the rules on their party primaries, stating that “under the electoral law, if the national leadership of the party submits a candidate’s name to the commission, INEC cannot reject it once the person is duly nominated by his or her political party and the law hasn’t changed.
“But there are problems and consequences. Some of the consequences are that courts could get the elections nullified on account of inappropriate nomination of candidate by political parties. At present INEC has no choice than to go and conduct a rerun at a great cost to the country.

“Under these cases, INEC has been made to conduct fresh elections. The parties are here and we can only appeal to their leadership to ensure that only what transpires at the primaries is transferred to the commission, and they should carry out due diligence on their candidates before forwarding their names to the commission.”
It is quite regrettable that while INEC, under the indefatigable Professor Yakubu, is striving hard to formulate policies and programmes as well as innovations in order to ensure free, fair, credible and acceptable elections in the country, political parties have taken the ignoble path of constituting stumbling blocks to these noble objectives.

It is now evident that the hijacking of political parties by ex-convicts, recedivists and other unscrupulous characters is the main factor responsible for the growing wave of election-day violence as well as continued attempts by some political elements at results manipulation in the country.

It is also crystal clear as to why the country has been so horribly mis-governed over the years with the federal, states and local governments’ treasuries massively and mindlessly looted. We now know, courtesy of the unwavering Yakubu, that the nation’s political space has been infiltrated by recedivists and unscrupulous elements, who eventually find their way into governance at various strata of society. The consequence has been the massive corruption by these dubious public office holders at a scale and dimension that cannot be contemplated let alone understood even by a lunatic.

This has left the nation underdeveloped, its economy prostrate and in a recession with a terribly traumatized and undeservedly impoverished citizenry.
While we commend the INEC chairman for his patriotic disposition, it is expedient to appeal to political parties to play by the rules and observe due diligence in the nomination of candidates for electoral offices. Nigeria has had enough of bad and corrupt leadership. It is high time the nation was positioned to join the comity of decent nations.

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