The 870,612 people found to have been involved in double registration during the just concluded voter registration across the country will soon be prosecuted, the Independent National Electoral Commission has said.
The Chairman of the commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, had while announcing the final list of registered voters in Abuja on March 3, 2011,disclosed that 870,612 persons were involved in double registration.
He added that some of those involved in the crime were “high profile Nigerians”
About 73.58 million people registered during the exercise that ended on February 5.
But on Monday when he unveiled the new accreditation and voting procedure for the general elections, Jega stated that a team of lawyers from the commission was expected to meet with another team constituted by the Nigerian Bar Association to fine-tune the procedure for the trial of the suspects.
He said,“We are committed to prosecuting electoral offenders.
“We have already recorded the successful prosecution of electoral offenders during the registration exercise and we are working with the NBA. We had a meeting with the NBA President, Mr. Joseph Daudu (SAN), last week.
“This week, a team that we have set up and a team that the NBA has set up will meet and fine-tune the details of prosecution. We have the evidence and we have the information.
“People who were caught for double registration will be charged to court. Hopefully, it is a straight forward case. We have made a commitment and we will make sure that these offenders are charged to court before the elections.”
Section 24 of the 2010 Electoral Act makes double registration an offence punishable, on conviction, by one year or a fine of N100,000 or both.
Jega told the representatives of civil society groups who witnessed the event that the commission would adopt the open-secret ballot system in conducting the elections.
The system was adopted for the 1992/93 elections, adjudged to have been the freest and fairest poll ever conducted in the country, but which the military under Gen. Ibrahim Babangida annulled.
Jega added that the electoral law permitted voters to stay behind and watch the counting of votes.
His explanation is, however, different from the advise by the Police to voters to leave polling stations after voting.
The INEC boss noted that the number of Nigerians who turned out to register and the commentaries about the polls left the body with no option than to work towards ensuring a credible exercise.
He also told the civil society representatives that INEC would on Tuesday (today) show party leaders samples of the ballot paper at an emergency meeting.
According to him, the commission has concluded work on the nomination process and is going ahead with the printing of ballot papers.
He said, “I want to use this opportunity to discuss the voting procedure which is one area that Nigerians really needs to understand sufficiently to be able to make good use of it.
“The whole objective of the new accreditation procedure is to ensure transparency and to ensure that every vote counts.
“Obviously, it will look a bit cumbersome and one of its major challenges is crowd control particularly in voting areas or polling units where the number of registered voters is large.
“Basically, this procedure is not new in this country, it was what was used in 1992/93 elections. It was called the modified open ballot system.
“The new voting procedure requires that you have to do accreditation first and determine the number of accredited voters in the poling unit before you commence voting.
“I said it is a bit cumbersome because at a particular time, all the accredited voters must be present to queue up before voting commences.
“People in the queue will now go to collect their ballot papers, go into the cubicle, mark the candidate they want and then come out in the open where the ballot box is and then cast their votes.
“After voting has ended, one of the most important requirements of this procedure is to ensure that the total number of votes cast does not exceed the total number of accredited people on the queue who actually voted.
“Once there is a discrepancy, between the people counted before the voting and the number, then automatically the results are nullified.”
Jega described the nomination of candidates by parties as “challenging because of the number of court cases and court orders that we received.”
He, however, said that INEC had been “able to navigate that minefield to the best of our ability.”
“We have also in fact since proceeded with the printing of the ballot papers and from the reports that we are getting, we feel confident that everything is also on course, “ he added.
Jega also promised an overhaul of the INEC mechanism as soon as the elections were over.
“In trying to do internal reorganisation and restructuring, we also have to be very, very careful not to do things that can be disruptive knowing that time has been a major challenge to us,” he said.
By John Alechenu, Abuja
No comments:
Post a Comment