A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Prof. Paul Ananaba, has called for an urgent review of electoral laws to further define the roles of electoral officers appointed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The actions of the embattled Adamawa Resident Electoral Commissioner, Hudu Yunusa-Ari, during the supplementary governorship election in the state calls for a review of INEC regulations, Ananaba said on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Wednesday.
“The society is dynamic; the laws are dynamic. From what we have seen from Yunusa-Ari, there is no need for waiting for the Electoral Act to be amended which would take a lot of time.
“INEC regulations should be amended; the manual and the guidelines of [conducting] election should be amended as quickly as possible, clearly showing the roles of each of these officers.
“An early prosecution is important so that he would make open his defence. He keeps saying, ‘I have acted within the law’; he has not stated any section of the law where he acted within the law,” he said.
The lawyer lamented that there are duplicates of responsibilities and vague office protocols.
“We need to ask, ‘Are there too many officers doing virtually the same thing?’ That is the bane of the Nigerian society. The roles should be clear and made public.
“Even if anyone wants to go outside the roles, Nigerians would know whether the person is actually doing the right thing or the wrong thing,” he said.
Ananaba noted that electoral officers are overexposed, adding that they are not saints. According to him, compromise can take place in any given situation.
“We speak as if agencies and security personnel are angels that cannot be compromised. We should reduce the level and percentage of compromise on the voters, electoral officers and security agencies, then we would get better results,” he said.
The SAN also stated that the allegation of a N2 billion bribe paid out for the premature declaration proved that there is a luring temptation among electoral personnel to compromise the electoral process.
“The temptation would be very high and that is why we should eliminate it. Don’t give people the opportunity to be tempted, use electronics and artificial intelligence to help us achieve better results in subsequent elections.
“The Adamawa election has thrown open so much regarding the non-neutrality of electoral officers and security agencies.
“Let us begin to look at having a national identity card for every Nigerian who logs in their vote. From there, we can reduce security agents’ presence, then we can do proper ballot counting; we can account for the votes,” he said.
