NASS Rejects INEC’s Bid For Offences Commission

The National Assembly has rejected the proposition by the Independent National Electoral Commission for the establishment of Electoral Offences Commission that will recommend stiff penalties for electoral offenders.
Instead, the Senate Committee on the Review of 1999 Constitution is situating Electoral Offences at the door steps of the Federal High Courts and will probably come as part of the amendment to the Electoral Act.
The Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, disclosed this yesterday in Abuja after delivering a paper entitled ‘Succession Challenges in Nigeria: The Political/Constitutional Solution’, during a forum organised by the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria.
He also raised the alarm that Nigeria and the present democracy were sitting on a keg of gun powder because of succession threats hanging over the 2015 presidential election.
To avert serious crises, he recommended three options of single term tenure to save the nation’s democracy. They are single term in which the incumbent will benefit directly; single term in which the incumbents are excluded and Win-Win Option/Third Way where President Goodluck Jonathan “will finish his six-year tenure in 2015 and then spend an additional two years in office to make it a total of six years in office by 2017. He will thereafter become ineligible to contest any other term having exhausted constitutionally prescribed six years tenure.
“In similar vein, the sitting governors will also complete a six-year tenure in 2017 (or whenever their tenure expires in the case of states where the governorship elections are not to be conducted in 2015) at which point they would be ineligible to contest for any other term having exhausted their constitutionally prescribed six-year tenure,” Ekweremadu said.
Speaking on the Electoral Offences Commission, he said, “We agreed with INEC that there is the need to discourage people from committing electoral offences.  ”INEC sent us a letter requesting the establishment of Electoral Offenses Commission which had earlier been suggested by the Justice Muhammed Uwais Electoral Committee.
“The view of the National Assembly on the matter is that there are too many organisations and too many bureaucracies. So, what we can do is to take advantage of the existing bureaucracies that deal with that situation.
“So, we are suggesting and it will probably come as part of the amendment to the Electoral Act to situate Electoral Offences at the door steps of the Federal High Courts.
“So, we intend to specify in the constitution a provision that makes Electoral Offences within the  purview of the Federal High Courts for it to have special jurisdiction to deal with Electoral Offences”, he said.

Rivers State Deputy Governor, Engr Tele Ikuru, inspecting a guard of honour mounted by 2014 Batch A corps members at Isaac Boro Park, Port Harcourt, yesterday.