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Assures Peaceful Election In Lagos
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Emefiele, Malami Dancing Around Supreme Court Judgement
With just few days to the Governorship Election, Human Rights Lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Femi Falana has insisted that arrested electoral offenders must be put on trial.
The human rights Lawyer who made this declaration on Monday evening in The Channels TV programme, Politics Today, said the move would serve as a deterrent to potential electoral offenders who may want to scuttle this week governorship election.
Falana who lamented that a Senator arrested with humongous $498,000 during the last election was wrongly charged for money laundering instead of vote buying.
The Luminary also cited a Lawmaker who was arrested for culpable homicide in Kano during the last presidential election but was mysteriously released on bail.
“I pray that the blood of the two persons he killed because of election will be crying for justice,” he said.
Falana said that INEC doesn’t have any excuse not to prosecute electoral offenders as its Chairman earlier declared that it lacked the capacity to embark on the judicial exercise.
The human rights activist urged the INEC Chairman to leverage on the magnanimity of the Nigerian Bar Association, (NBA) to the Commission in the prosecution of electoral offenders.
The Activist noted that the inability of INEC to upload election results on the Server has remained a major challenge, adding that the Commission must deal decisively with erring staff.
Falana assured that Saturday, March 18 governorship election will be peaceful in Lagos as the State Police Commissioner has guaranteed security of voters besides check mating eruption of violence.
He disclosed that the Lagos Resident Commissioner has assured early arrival of election materials as against that the last presidential election where materials arrived late at the different polling units in the state relatively late.
He said that voters must be furnished with the different phone numbers of security operatives to enable them report any outbreak of violence in a polling unit.
He also observed in dismay that the cash crunch currently being experienced nationwide, occasioned by the naira redesign policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN has contributed immensely to voters empathy.
” One of my lawyers could not travel to cast his vote in his state where he registered for the election because of the cash crunch. I believe many Nigerians were confronted with similar experience. Unfortunately, the situation is yet to improve,” he said.
The Activist stated that the National University Commission (NUC), has no right to close down Universities in Nigeria as most youths have been disenfranchised.
Falana said that most varsity students registered on campus, adding that with the closure of the campus, they could not exercise their civic right.
On the Naira Redesign Policy, he noted that the CBN Governor, Emefiele and the Attorney General, Abubakar Malami are dancing around the Supreme Court judgement.
