Nnamani panel recommends unbundling of INEC, Diaspora voting

The Constitution and Electoral Reform Committee set up by President Muhammadu Buhari and headed by former Nigerian Senate President, Ken Nnamani has recommended that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) be unbundled.

While it proposed that new agencies be set up to take care over some of INEC’s responsibilities, it also recommended for the participation of independent candidates, Diaspora voting and the use of technology for elections.

This was contained in the report documents the committee submitted to the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami (SAN), on Tuesday in Abuja.

Different from what was usually obtainable in previous reports on electoral reform, the Senator Nnamani-led committee refused to propose the setting up of the electoral offences tribunal.

Instead, it suggested that more courtrooms be built and more judges appointed under the current court system.

On the agencies that will take up some INEC tasks, the committee proposed for two, one, the Political Parties and Electoral Offences Commission (PPEOC) and two, the Constituency Delineation Centre (CDC).

According to the committee, the PPEOC will take charge of registration and regulation of political parties and also the prosecution of electoral offenders in the regular courts, while the CDC on the other hand will carry out the delineation of constituencies.

The report was submitted to the AGF together with four proposed bills, two of which propose the setting up of the new agencies, while the other two bills are for the amendments of relevant parts of the Constitution and the Electoral Act.

The secretary to the committee, Prof. Mamman Lawan, had told some journalists after the submission of the report that the proposal for the establishment of the two new agencies was targeted at ensuring that INEC is unbundled so that it can focus on its core mandate.

The 23-member committee was inaugurated on October 4, 2016.

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