By Aaron Ossai and Disun Amosun
Speaker House of Representatives Femi Gbajabiamla yesterday urged critical stakeholders in the proposed Electoral Offences Commission Bill to address key unresolved issues to curb increased vote buying, disruption in the electoral process through violence by politicians and their supporters.
The Speaker gave the charge at a Public Hearing organised by the House Committee on Electoral Matters on a Bill for an Act to establish the National Electoral Offences Commission and for Related Matters.
Represented on the occasion by the Deputy Speaker, Rep Ahmed Wase, Gbajabiamila harped on the need to build on the gains of national democratic experience for an effective Electoral Framework for free, fair and credible polls in the coming elections.
“While we acknowledge that even our recent governorship elections in Ekiti and Sound states signifies a milestone in Nigeria’s democratic evolution, there is no doubt a lot of work still needs to be done to take the country to a point where elections are devoid of offences”, the Speaker noted.
In his presentation on the occasion, Chairman Independent National Electoral Commission INEC, Prof Mahmood Yakubu described the proposed establishment bill as a critical legislation that has been in the legislative rungs for the last 13 years, spanning the Justice Mohammed Uwais Committee on Electoral Reforms in 2009, echoed by the Sheik Ahmed Lemu Committee following the post election violence of 2011 and the most recent, Sen. Ken Nnamani Committee on Constitutional and Electoral Reform 2017.
The INEC boss described Tuesday’s hearing as the closest the nation has come to the passage of the long overdue National Electoral Offences Commission Bill into law and hoped it will be done expeditiously so as not to suffer the same fate of previous efforts which did not come to fruition.
At the close of the technical session of the Hearing, Chairman House Committee on Electoral Matters Rep Aishatu Jubril Dukku announced that a technical committee would be put in place to scrutinize all presentations and submissions made to the committee on the bill.
