The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has said that it would use armed personnel who would take its orders to monitor the 2027 elections.
The ICPC Director of Public Education Department, Mr Demola Bakare, disclosed the development on Thursday at a virtual National Stakeholders Workshop for the 2027 General Election.
Bakare said the commission had trained personnel with arms and would deploy them during the 2027 elections, to ensure proper election monitoring.
The online workshop, which would continue for three Thursdays in November, was organised by Praxis in conjunction with the Human Resources Development Centre, University of Lagos.
The topic of the webinar was “Strategies for Identifying, Monitoring and Reporting Corruption for Electoral Integrity During the 2027 General Election in Nigeria.”
According to Bakare, effective election monitoring and observation begin many months before the election proper, whereby monitors get acquainted with the electoral and criminal laws of the land.
” Elections usually become corrupt because it is a political competition.
“Electoral fraud thrives when everyone engages in it”.
He said that when electoral fraud is punished by relevant authorities, the punishment of culprits would deter potential electoral offenders.
“Elections constitute one of the principal mechanisms through which citizens exercise political sovereignty, choose their representatives and hold political leaders accountable.
“However, the existence of elections does not automatically guarantee democratic governance,” he said.
Bakare noted that electoral competition could be compromised by bribery, vote buying, abuse of public resources, intimidation, procurement fraud or deliberate manipulation of electoral records.
He stressed that where such happened, elections could become instruments for reproducing political privileges rather than expressing the freely determined will of citizens.
Bakare said an election monitor should not be partisan and should ensure that he had access to places and things the laws granted him access to.
He stressed the need for monitors to secure their lives while on duty as well as the integrity of evidences acquired during monitoring, to make them usable in courts.
The director also noted that monitors should report with actionable facts, follow them up accordingly and channel them to the right agencies for effective operations.
According to Bakare, if the 1993 elections is still being referenced as a standard of electoral operations, it shows that Nigeria’s elections can achieve that level of success again.
He urged citizens to mobilise for a better 2027 elections. (NAN)
