INEC Chairman Differs With Buhari On Punishment For Ballot Box Snatchers

Although President Muhammadu Buhari has given the Military and
the Police the power to be ruthless as ballot box snatchers because
they commit the offence “at risk to their own lives”, Professor
Mahmood Yakubu has expressed the belief that ballot box snatchers
should be punished only in accordance with the electoral law.

Speaking in Abuja on Monday at a meeting of the national caucus
of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the President had said
those who influence ballot box snatching may find out it is their
“last unlawful action”.

“Anybody who decides to snatch ballot boxes or lead thugs to
disturb, it may be that [this will be] the last unlawful action you
will take,” Buhari had said.

“I rarely give the military and the police [the power] to be
ruthless. We are not going be blamed but we won’t rig election. I
want Nigerians to be respected; let them vote whoever they want
across the parties. I’m not afraid of it.

“The whole 36 states in Nigeria, I went round. I think I have
got enough support across the country to look after me. So I’m
going to warn anybody who thinks he has enough influence in his
locality to lead a body of thugs to snatch boxes or to disturb the
voting system, he will do it at the expense of his own life.”

When these comments were brought to the INEC Chairman on Tuesday
as he addressed the media on the preparedness of his commission for
the rescheduled polls, Yakubu said: “The position of the commission
is that all violators of the Electoral Act should be punished
according to the provisions of the Electoral Act.”

Yakubu also denied reports that Okechukwu Ibeanu, the National
Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission
(INEC) in charge of logistics, was invited by the Department of
State Services (DSS).

“No commissioner of the commission was picked up by any security
agency no house of any commissioner of INEC was raided; no any
commissioner of INEC has been picked by the security agency,” he
said.

“The particular commissioner you are referring to, whose name
was mentioned on social media, is as we speak currently in his
office in the commission. Similarly, no six directors were picked
up by any security agency. All decisions on the administration of
the commission are taken by the commission as an independent,
constitutional body. We will continue to protect and jealously
guard our independence.”