ABUJA – The Constitution and Electoral Reform Committee has recommended the inclusion of Independent Candidacy in Nigeria’s electoral laws.
This, the committee headed by a former Senate President, Ken Nnamani, believes would deal with the issues of political parties not respecting their laws as regard nomination of candidates for electoral offices.
Also, the committee recommended creation of Electoral Offences Commission, among others.
The committee’s report was on Tuesday, presented to the Federal Government through the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, in Abuja.
A member of the team and the Executive Director, Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre PLAC, Clem Nwankwo stated that one of the key recommendation of the committee is the setting up of Electoral Offences tribunal.
“One of the key recommendation is the setting up of Electoral Offences Tribunal which is an area we should look into to end electoral violence in the country.
“The second recommendation is constituency de-limitation. Constituency de-limitation is a constitutional provision but hasn’t happened since 1999 when Nigeria returned to democratic rule. We recommended the use of technology in the electoral process starting from the collation of voters register to minimize the human elements in electoral process as it relates to manipulation of elections.
“We also recommended the use of technology for the transmission of results of elections other than the use of the manual way of transmitting results. If technology is used for the transmission of results and it is open to all the political parties, the human elements of manipulation will be reduced.
“May I add that every systeem can be manipulated if the people decide to violate the law and that is why we recommended the creation of electoral offences tribunal.
“The committee also recommended the creation of independent candidacy to deal with the issues of political parties who do not respect their laws as regard nomination of candidates for electoral offices”, a member of the team and the Executive Director, Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre PLAC, Clem Nwankwo, stated
While presenting the report, Nnamani said that members of the committee are still being owed sitting allowances that must be paid by the government.
Prompt News reports that members of the 24-member committee include: Dr. Muiz Banire, Dr. Clement Nwankwo, Chief A.C Ude and Mr. Tahir, Director, Legal Drafting, Federal Ministry of Justice, while Dr. Mamman Lawal of Bayero University, Kano is the secretary.
