Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, says Electoral Act amendments without enforcement are purely a waste of time
Falana said this on Sunday in an interview on Arise
Television monitored by DAILY POST.
According to him, the problem is not the absence of laws,
but the refusal of the political class to enforce them.
He said what matters today in Nigeria is not ideology or
quality of representation, but the gain from defections.
The senior lawyer added that people abandon the parties that
elected them, embrace new ones, and face no consequences, stressing that such
is the real threat to the nation’s democracy.
“We operate in an atmosphere of reckless impunity. The
ongoing amendment exercise is time wasting if there’s no enforcement. We have
always had a very steep penalties on purchase of votes. Thuggery and the rest
of them.
“But members of the political class, the ruling parties,
have never sent the engine to arrest and deal with electoral offenders.
“As far back as 2008, the Wale panel recommended the
establishment of an electoral offenses commission to arrest offenders and
prosecute them. No regime, including the one that campaigned for electoral
reforms, has ever thought of setting up that now, what is the big deal now?
“We want to increase campaign funds and nobody has ever
complied with that. The only important political point in Nigeria today is the
gale of defections, and nobody is talking of that, even in the proposed
amendment,” he said.
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