It is a bliss to read the Nigerian Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, ponder over electoral fraud in Nigeria, asking , “what can we do to end this shaming cycle of electoral fraud?” This is a question that I have asked and discussed on this blog as well.
Professor Soyinka proffers some answers to the topic using Edo state as a case study - where the Appeal Court had to overturn an election recently, a legal decision that took 19 months to be pronounced.
The time calls for fire and brimstone!”, Soyinka states, “election rigging so costly to the perpetrators that it is not worth their while. Offer them, not a vision, but a taste of hell. Right here, on earth.”
He went on…’if there are means to bankrupt such high-and-mighty felons, make them forfeit their possessions – along similar measures to those that are applied to drug barons - these options should also be pursued.”
The guilty would be compelled, for a start, to pay the entire cost of the Tribunal proceedings, including legal and other costs incurred by the vindicated appellants. All known assets of the guilty will be seized, the costs of both Tribunals and Commissions deducted from the sale of such assets.
Those who connive with electoral criminals and break their oath of office – police officers, military personnel, returning officers, other staff and overseers, all the way up to directorate level within the commission – the penalty for any form of aiding and abetting should be imprisonment without the option of fine.
How can these measures be implemented? A question Soyinka not only asked but answered:
The answer is that we are not looking at a solution that will be effected within the next month or year.
The preliminary stage is the setting up the commission – or special courts - for criminal prosecution. The Tribunals’ case-books are routinely filled with evidence of just who did what, and how, and if some of those miscreants are sitting in any of the Houses, or in any governorship lodge, then obviously the rest is up to the electorate. Indeed, those who oppose any measures for the drastic sanitization of the electoral process should be marked down for the day of reckoning at the next elections. Any member of the civil society who believes that he or she is not required to be part of this corrective exercise has already succumbed to the blackmail of power and impunity, and cannot be considered part of the affected polity. It is up to the people to dislodge, in the most humiliating manner, the guilty or collaborating, from their undeserved; positions.
Read the Professor Wole Soyinka’s article (From Sodom to Adam) in full on AfricanLoft.
Many things stated by Prof makes sense and sounds like stating the obvious. The only other obvious fact is the readiness and willingness for Nigeria to move from Sodom to Adam. One would have thought that punishing the criminals, I mean electoral fraudsters and getting them to pay court costs and imprisoning those who commit perjury in court would have automatically been part of the legal procedure. Nigeria will change, Many people are daily coming on board and decrying corruption. What we must do is keep the momentum going and don’t give up or slow down.
November 19, 2008 at 7:48 pm