A human rights activist, Femi Falana, has said that clerics who are paid to pray for political candidates should also be made to face prosecution.
Falana said this on Tuesday at the public presentation of a partnership between some stakeholders in the elections.
The stakeholders comprise the Transition Monitoring Group, Human and Environmental Development Agenda, Police Service Commission, Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, among others.
“We have left out those who are spending money on campaigns beyond the stipulation of the Electoral Act; people or parties offering money to defect; money spent on media to manipulate stories and make phony projections; pastors and mallams to pray for candidates to win elections; unemployed people attending rallies; thugs to attack political opponents and disrupt rallies; and election officers.
“If we really want to challenge the violation of the Electoral Act via monetisation of the election, we have to go beyond those who are likely to be arrested on the day of election. With the cooperation of the police and security agents, it is easy to arrest those who distribute money during elections,” Falana said.
He added that any form of inducement should be treated as a criminal offence according to Section 124 of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended).
“In the case of Falae and Obasanjo, which was decided in 1999, the Court of Appeal held that even though there was evidence that money, bags of rice and salt were distributed by the PDP — that was the allegation — the court said ‘yes, but there is no evidence or prove that the beneficiary of the inducement, Gen Olusegun Obasanjo, directed the party to distribute or give out any form of gifts for the election.’
“Since then, it has always been difficult to prove that the beneficiaries of inducement directly gave instructions to their parties or their agents to distribute money, rice, salt or whatever,” he said.
