The Inter-Party Advisory Council has expressed concern over provisions in the newly amended Electoral Act, stating that penalties for certificate forgery and vote buying have been significantly weakened.
Speaking on Wednesday during an appearance on Arise Television’s ‘Prime Time,’ IPAC National Chairman, Yusuf Dantalle, criticised the revised law, describing the changes as detrimental to Nigeria’s democratic process.
The legislation, recently passed by the National Assembly of Nigeria, was signed into law by Bola Tinubu within 24 hours of its approval.
“The new Electoral Act has, to a greater extent, reduced the laws for forgery of certificate and reduced the penalty for vote buying. It is supposed to be a major offense. It is anti-democratic. It’s dysfunctional.
“So why should we see that as something that we treat with levity? We are talking of the person who will make laws and appointments, and we cannot allow the election of this individual to be feeble. Penalties for infractions should not be trivialised.
“So now, you go to the states. You are talking of the election of the man who is the Chief Security Officer of the state, who determines almost everything in the state, who determines the welfare, the security of the people in the state.
“So these are the things we are saying. Looking at this thing, IPAC before now, during the exercise that led to the enactment of this law, we had engagements with the joint committee of the National Assembly on responsibility and we made wonderful recommendations.
“One of the major recommendations we made was that if election must be fair and free, and if INEC must be independent, as the name implies, the appointment of the drivers of the umpire: INEC chairman and his commissioners should be taken away from the purview of the executive or the government in power.
“So let it be that we have an agency, an institution that will comprise of legal luminaries, civil society organizations, political parties to do the selection. Nothing was done about this recommendation,” he said.
