Nigerian courts legitimised vote-buying, other electoral act violations - Falana

Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, has accused Nigerian courts of legalising vote-buying and other violations of the provisions of the electoral act.

He cited an Appeal Court case between former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Olu Falae in 1999 as an instance of how vote-buying and other violations of the provisions of the electoral act became legalised in Nigeria.

Falana spoke on Wednesday at the ninth forum of the anti-corruption situation room in Abuja.

According to him, the challenge staring the country in the face is what could be done to reform Nigeria’s electoral process “in a way that we will not be all collectively disgraced.”

“Unfortunately, under the current political dispensation, our courts have legitimised vote-buying and other violations of the provisions of the electoral act.

“I will refer to few cases. In the case of Falae and Obasanjo, in 1999, it was proved in the court of appeal that bags of rice, salt and garri were distributed to entice voters for the candidate of the ruling party, General Olusegun Obasanjo.

“The court of appeal so found such infraction of the law, however, it turned round to say even those distributing were said to be PDP stalwarts, the court of appeal said it was not proven that there were winners of the election.

“Since then, the purchase of votes, bribing of voters have been the order of the day.

“The battle ahead is how we are going to reform the democratic session in a way that we will not be all collectively disgraced. We have never gone this low where publicly people are trading in votes. We never went that low,” he said.