LAGOS – The Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre (WARDC) on Thursday urged the Federal Government to establish an Independent Electoral Offences Tribunal to address issues of electoral violence in the country.
Dr Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi, the Executive Director of the centre, made the call at a joint media briefing with the International Foundation for Electoral System and the European Union on “Issues and
Challenges of Post 2015 Election’’.
Akiyode-Afolabi said that the level of impunity with which some political parties and other stakeholders perpetrate electoral violence was worrisome.
According to her, the continued absence of institutional and legal solutions against electoral violence in Nigeria has not helped matters either.
She said that several offenders of electoral violence had been left unpunished over the years.
“WRADC is working with IFES and with the support of the European Union on a project called Mitigation of Violence in Election.
“ The project has an objective to strengthen capacity of stakeholders in Nigeria to prevent and remedy electoral violence and also provide constructive engagement.
“For every election that we have in Nigeria from 1966 to 1979 to 1999 to 2003 to 2007, electoral violence had been a decimal factor that has been reoccurring and there is a need for us to begin to address it, even for the 2015 election.
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“If you compare the number of prosecution that we have had with respect to electoral violence and if you compare it with what we see, you will know that often times, people who perpetrate electoral violence in Nigeria go unpunished.
“INEC would not be able to arrest and prosecute electoral offenders and also the fact that INEC itself is also very restrained because of their capacity, they cannot do everything.
“So, we call on the government to establish an Independent Electoral Tribunal or an Electoral Offences Commission to address electoral Offences.’’
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