ELECTORAL OFFENCES IN NIGERIA AND THE REGIME OF SANCTIONS: CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS

Abstract

In Nigeria, the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) and the Electoral Act 2022 (as amended), provide the legal framework and legislative safeguards under which elections could be held, in line with global best practices.1 The implication of these provisions is that persons and political parties can only come to power through the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) and the Electoral Act, 2022 (as amended). Consequently, observance and adherence to Constitutional and Electoral stipulations are fundamental to the credibility of elections in Nigeria. In acknowledgement of the sociological fact that there are bound to be deviants in the society who hardly keep to the law, electoral offences are bound happen. The Electoral Act, 2022 creates legal safeguards in the form of electoral offences, which may be committed by an individual or group of persons, and for which such individuals or group of persons would be liable to criminal trials and sanctions, if convicted. The research methodology adopted in this research is pure theoretical approach popularly known as doctrinal method. This involve the definition, interpretation, analysis, evaluation and application of the legal concepts involved in the area of research using both primary and secondary sources gathered in the course of the research. This research begins with an overview of electoral offences in Nigeria, it then highlights electoral offences as codified in the Electoral Act, 2022 (as amended). There is a discussion of some of the challenges sabotaging a full implementation of the Act, as it relates to the offences. At the end of the research, the researcher concluded that in as much as the legal framework for the proper conduct of elections in Nigeria is, arguably, expansive enough in scope, implementation still remains a challenge. The researcher recommended that a lot of measures should be put in place for implementation of the provisions of the Act, that the National Assembly should expedite the passage of the Electoral Offences Commission and Tribunal bill, giving to the Commission the capacity to investigate all electoral fraud and related offences, and coordinate enforcement and prosecution of all electoral offences. The envisioned Commission should have the capacity and legal backing to set up Mobile Courts to try election offences on election days.