Voters at polling centres after voting risk prosecution – IGP

Inspector General of Police,  Mr. Suleiman Abba, on Tuesday advised voters in the forthcoming general elections to leave the polling centres after casting their votes to avoid being prosecuted for contravening the electoral law.

Abba stated this at a National Stakeholders’ Summit on the  2015 general elections organised by the Independent National Electoral Commission, in Abuja.

He  explained that recent experiences of the police had shown that most violence during elections occurred when the electorate stayed behind at the polling centres after casting their votes.

He said, “For quite sometime,  the law enforcement and security agencies have been accused of partiality, of partisanship and for exhibiting high handedness among others, which results in violence in some cases, due to huge presence of people at poling centres after voting.

“I advise everybody, cast your votes and go home. This is based on what I observed in section 129 (1) of the Electoral Act. There are nine different types of offences that are listed there.

“If you stay back after casting your votes,  there is the likelihood of you committing any of the offences within a distance of 300 meters from poling unit are,  canvass for votes;  solicit for the votes of anybody;  persuade any voter against voting for a particular candidate;  or persuade any voter not to vote at all.

“Others are,  shout slogans concerning the election;  be in possession of any offensive weapon or anything that could intimidate voters; tender any any material relating to the election;  use any vehicle bearing the colour or symbol of any political party;  loiter without lawful excuse after voting or after being refused to vote;  snatch or destroy any election material and finally,  blaring siren.”

Abba said what should be the main concern of most stakeholders in the forthcoming elections was to allow the law enforcement agents to do their job effectively at the polling centres.

He said, “I don’t think there will be smooth conduct in any of the polling units.  I am not even sure that the electorate will like to go out and cast their votes, without the law enforcement agents at polling centres.

“Traditionally,  a political office holder or a contestant should cast his vote and leave. So long as they are not agents, they are expected to cast their votes and go home.

“As leadership of the political parties, we want you to convey my message to your members, supporters and the contestants, when they cast their votes, they should go home. Their continued stay would divide the electorate.”

Abba said the police,  ever before the commencement of campaigns, had carried out a lot of activities to sensitize the officers to appreciate the importance of contributing to the development of our nascent democracy, which included credible election.

He said late commencement of polls also contribute to security threats at poling centres because people became agitated which could lead to full scale violence.

He therefore advised the INEC officials to perfect all arrangements to avoid poll delay.

He asked politicians to check the recruitment of thugs,  arming them and directing them to attack each other stressing that his men had arrested some thugs, seized their arms, identify some of their sponsors and even prosecuted them.

Abba said the deployment of soldiers to support the Police during the election was in order since they would not play any role in the electoral process.

He said, “The soldiers are not being deployed in polling units. The use of the military to support civil authorities is contained in section 207 of the Nigerian constitution. The whole aim of deploying soldiers is to have a credible, free and fair election.”

He explained that adequate arrangements had been perfected to ensure that there are enough security personnel in each of the 150, 000 polling centres, 900 INEC offices,  and the 9,000 collation centres, across the country.

INEC Chairman, Prof Attahiru Jega, told the stakeholders that all the Permanent Voter Cards needed for the elections had been received  by the commission and distributed to all its offices across the country.

He added that 82 per cent of the PVCs had been collected by their owners across the country even as he clarified that the cards were not produced by a Chinese firm, but by a Nigerian company, which produced 10 million copies from China.