– INEC chairman complained about political parties presenting ex-convicts and certificate forgers for election
– He said INEC has no power to stop such people from contesting when they are nominated by their parties
Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Professor Mahmood Yakubu, has observed that some of those presented by political parties to contest elections in the country are ex-convicts and certificate forgers, regretting that the commission has no power to disqualify such candidates.
ZENITHBLOG.com gathered that Yakubu made this observation on Tuesday, Speaking at the formal presentation of INEC’s Strategic Plan for 2017-2021 to stakeholders in Abuja.
INEC chairman complained that the commission has no power to reject ex-convicts and certificate forgers presented by political parties as candidates.
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Yakubu identified one of the many causes of inconclusive elections or litigations as the inclination of political parties to circumvent the law by throwing up unqualified candidates, This Day reports.
He said: “In some cases some of the candidates nominated actually shouldn’t have been nominated because if the parties are doing due diligence, we will never have the kind of problems we have had with the numerous elections nullified on account of party primaries arising from the nomination of people who under the law are not qualified to contest for election.
“We saw in some of the court charges that some parties nominated ex-convicts to stand for election and INEC has
“We had in some cases certificate forgers participated in elections only for the elections to be nullified and INEC will, because of that, be compelled to conduct the elections afresh. The parties are here, they need to have the mechanism by which they can have transparency at the party primaries before their nominees are submitted to the commission.”
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He also commented on the actions taken against the commission’s staff indicted by the police and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) probe panels, saying that 23 officials had been placed on interdiction until their trial in court is concluded.
He said the affected staff were being prosecuted in court by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecution.
“All the 23 affected staff have been placed on suspension and on half salary until they prove their innocence at the courts and we are going to do the same thing with the other 202 staff indicted by the EFCC who are still being investigated by the commission.”
Meanwhile, the Independent National Electoral Commission has unveiled an electronic collation and results transmission system with a view to eliminating manual collation which the commission says enables malpractices.
It noted that the e-collation system will further improve the credibility of Nigeria’s electoral process.
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