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The 2015 general elections in Nigeria would go down memory lane as one of the most abusive ever as it violated most of our electoral regulations. Campaign slogans and jingles were marred with all manner of irregularities, character assassination, lies, and all manner of terrible conducts, which were all against the Electoral Act of 2010.
Section 95 of the Electoral Act (2010) prohibits certain conduct at political campaigns, with subsection (1) saying that “no political campaign or slogan shall be tainted with abusive language directly or indirectly likely to injure religious, ethnic, tribal or sectional feelings.’’
Subsection 2 of the section also stressed it further that, “Abusive intemperate, slanderous or base language or insinuations or innuendoes, designed or likely to provoke violent reactions or emotions shall not be employed or used in political campaigns,” while subsection (3) says, “Places designated for religious worship, police station, and public offices shall not be used for political campaigns, rallies and processions; or to promote, propagate or attack political parties, candidates or their programmes or ideologies.”
Subsection (5) says, “No political party or member of a political party shall retain, organise, train or equip any person or group of persons for the purpose of enabling them to be employed for the use or display of physical force or coercion in promoting any political objective or interest or in such manner as to arouse reasonable apprehension that they are organised, trained or equipped for that purpose.”
On the consequences of the breach of the Act, Subsection 7 stipulates penalties for infringement as N1million or 12 months imprisonment for individuals and N2million in the first instance and N1million for subsequent offence for a political party; while subsection (8) says aiding and abetting of contravention of subsection (5) by any person shall warrant N500,000 fine or three years imprisonment or both.
With more political parties going into this elections come 2019, Nigerians can only hope that parties would abide by these regulations in other to record a free, fair and credible elections.
