HUMAN rights lawyer Femi Falana has questioned the credibility of last Saturday’s presidential and National Assembly elections, accusing security officers, electoral staff, and state governors of undermining the process.
“I’ve not been impressed by the very disappointing outing on the part of the Independent National Electoral Commission,” Falana said during an exclusive interview with Channels Television.
“Nigerians’ had been assured they were going to have a credible election – a peaceful election – whereby votes would count. Regrettably, there was a free rein of thuggery; thugs took over in many places.
“There was a compromise on the part of the security forces. There was a compromise on the part of some INEC chiefs. There was impunity on the part of some governors.”
The Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) expressed hope that the authorities would draw sufficient lessons from the exercise.
“As our courts would say, they are the substantial compliance with the Electoral Act because you could isolate where you had pockets of illegality, pockets of violence,” he said.
In his opinion, INEC, should go back to the drawing board and reconsider election management and the role of ad hoc staff.
He stated further that the Commission should ensure that individuals caught for electoral offenses be charged in the appropriate courts as quickly as possible.
According to him, among those who violated the law are individuals who have been “arrested by the police or other security agencies for disrupting the election, announcing fake results or forging results, and deliberately preventing people from voting”.
Falana added that prosecuting electoral criminals would ensure that the officers in charge of the future elections understood that it would not be “business as usual” anymore.
