Unlawful Substitution Of Candidates/Inflation Of Ballot Cast/Forgery Of Election Returns/Intimidation Of Voters And Election Officials-National Human Rights Commission Indicts Judiciary,Police And Electoral Body For Electoral Impunity In Nigeria.

A report prepared for the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has blamed the judiciary, the police and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), for the prevalence of widespread electoral impunity in Nigeria.

The report, which is titled: “An Independent Review of Evidence of Gross Violations of the Rights to Participate in Government to Public Service and to fair trial through the Election Petition Process in Nigeria — 2007 and 2011,” found that the judiciary, the police and the electoral commission unwittingly encouraged electoral impunity in the country.

The report, which runs into 146 pages, was prepared by a seven-member expert Technical Working Group (TWG) constituted by the NHRC and chaired by Nsongurua Udombana. Other members are Mohammed Akanbi, Oluyemisi Bamgbose, Ifeoma Enemo, Muhammed Ladan and Solomon Ukhuegbe.

The report considered the petitions filed at the various election petition tribunals across the six geo-political zones of the country.

The report identified and examined 84 crimes allegedly committed by individuals and institutions during the 2007 and 2011 general elections.

Some of the crimes identified by the report included cases of unlawful substitution of candidates by political parties and INEC, inflation of the numbers of ballots cast, forgery of election returns, and intimidation of voters and election officials at polling centres.

The report cited various instances of impunity in the electoral system across the country. The report also pointed out that INEC officials sometimes colluded with politicians to falsify election results by manufacturing results after voting had ended.