Achieving Standards For Electoral Integrity
Eacross the country in the past few months have tended to question our preparedness to have free, fair, transparent, credible and violence-free elections in 2019. Elections are said to be the central feature of democracy. And for people to be able to exercise their franchise, they must be able to make their choice of candidates without imposition, inducement, molestation and violence. In a nutshell, we cannot talk of democratic consolidation in Nigeria, if elections are not integrity-driven. The implication is that relevant stakeholders and parties to elections at any point in time must perform their duties with the highest level of efficiency, responsibility and transparency.
It is no longer in doubt that one major drawback to our attempts at conducting credible and acceptable elections has been the desperation of political actors to win at all cost through unethical strategies; to beat the efforts of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to checkmate them. From premeditated inflation of voter registers and under-age voting, politicians have graduated to ballot box snatching, maiming and killing of opponents and vote buying.
The issue of vote buying has now made the integrity of our electoral processes to be in doubt. In the past, vote buying was done in secrecy, but today, it is openly done without any fear of arrest or prosecution. This development is sad as it is capable of hampering and hurting the development of democracy in the country in the long run. Apart from the fact that the Electoral Act has criminalised vote buying, security agents and polling officials must not condone and encourage vote buying in future elections. The electoral law must be enforced in every election circle. The electorate should equally know that giving away their votes for cash will not in any way help them. Vote buying is a threat to the integrity of the electoral process.
The INEC has a responsibility to ensure that anyone who sells or buys votes is prosecuted. As the electoral umpire, the INEC must also provide a level-playing field for all the political parties. The Commission must sustain the current momentum in the planning and preparation for elections. All logistics must be in place and there should be adequate manpower and materials to cater for the registered voters.
The role of the security agencies, particularly the police, as critical stakeholders