Human rights lawyer Femi Falana has described ongoing amendments to the Electoral Act as a waste of time if they are not backed by strict enforcement.
Falana made the assertion on Sunday during an interview on Arise Television, where he argued that Nigeria’s challenge is not the lack of laws but the unwillingness of the political class to enforce existing ones.
According to him, ideology and quality representation have taken a back seat in Nigerian politics, while political defections driven by personal gain have become the dominant concern.
The senior lawyer noted that elected officials routinely abandon the political parties that brought them to power, defect to other parties and face no sanctions, describing the trend as a major threat to the country’s democracy.
“We operate in an atmosphere of reckless impunity. The ongoing amendment exercise is time wasting if there’s no enforcement. We have always had a very steep penalties on purchase of votes. Thuggery and the rest of them.
“But members of the political class, the ruling parties, have never sent the engine to arrest and deal with electoral offenders.
“As far back as 2008, the Wale panel recommended the establishment of an electoral offenses commission to arrest offenders and prosecute them. No regime, including the one that campaigned for electoral reforms, has ever thought of setting up that now, what is the big deal now?
“We want to increase campaign funds and nobody has ever complied with that. The only important political point in Nigeria today is the gale of defections, and nobody is talking of that, even in the proposed amendment,” he said.
Falana stressed that without political will and concrete mechanisms to punish offenders, further amendments to the Electoral Act would have little or no impact on strengthening Nigeria’s democratic process.
