A former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Michael Aondoakaa, has called for an electoral offenses tribunal to address electoral malpractices.
Naija News reports that Aondoakaa (SAN) said the administration he worked with sent an executive bill for the creation of an electoral offenses tribunal to the National Assembly to address electoral malpractices.
In an interview with Arise News, the former Attorney General under former President Umaru Musa Yaradua backed the call of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, for a special electoral offenses tribunal to enhance speedy adjudication of electoral disputes.
“We proposed electoral offenses tribunal but I left off office, so we don’t know what came out of it. Ours was to have an election electoral offenses tribunal to deal with electoral offenses. The idea was to create a deterrence; that it should be speedily, you should have no other jurisdiction but to deal with matters related to electoral offenses. It was an executive bill actually, it was sent to National Assembly.
“I don’t know what came out of it. I really don’t know, they can revisit that. It is desirable and I agree with INEC chairman to have an electoral offenses tribunal because the issue of electoral offenses are part of the corrupt practices affecting the election.
“If people are punished, penal provisions and even other sanctions, there will be deterrence young people that are eager to serve the politician will find themselves in prisons. The other young people around the environment will not like to participate in that.
“If you look at Justice Uwais report, electoral offenses tribunal was specifically proposed and when it came to the Federal Executive Council which I was the subcommittee chairman to review the report for us to produce a white paper, we also accepted the establishment of the electoral offenses tribunal and it was forwarded to the National Assembly,” he said.
The former Minister called on President Bola Tinubu’s administration to revisit the electoral offenses bill to make the nation’s election more credible.
“I think that it is desirable for this present government to revisit that in order to make our election more credible; credible in the sense that the tribunal having sole responsibility to deal with electoral offenses it will be dealt with speedily and it will create a deterrence of people who might like to take the law into their hands during elections,” he added.
