‘ Conclude election petitions before inaugurating elected officers’

Aof the 2027 General Elections, Nigerians, yesterday, intensified calls for the amendment of the country’s electoral laws to ensure all court cases were resolved before winners were sworn in.

According to them, it will prevent constitutional crises stemming from post- election litigations and ensure that incumbents won’t use public funds to prosecute election cases.

They also emphasised an urgent need to unbundle the Independent National Electoral Commission to ensure effectiveness, transparency and credibility in future polls.

The stakeholders made the calls at the national multistakeholders forum jointly organised by Kimpact Development Initiative and National Democratic Institute in Abuja.

Executive Director of Kimpact, Bukola Idowu, who accused incumbents of abusing court processes with state funds, noted that not concluding election petitions before the inauguration was always a distraction to both the government and judiciary.

Idowu said while Nigerians lauded the 2023 polls as the best the country ever had, others described it as unsatisfactory.

He said: “As you can see if you look at the timeline of the last election, the judiciary as it is today, spends two years on election issues, which is a distraction for them. Secondly, the election took place in February 2023, but the whole election was concluded in February 2024 by the Supreme Court, which is one year.

“What this means is that for the governors, they were being distracted. So why are we having this kind of distraction in governance? It should not be so.”