By Nnamdi Ojiego
A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Professor Itse Sagay, has said the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, lacked the ability and political will to prosecute electoral offenders as assigned to it by the Electoral Acts.

Prof. Sagay who was chairman at a public lecture in honour of Prince Tony Momoh at the University of Lagos, Akoka, argued that it was unfortunate that there was no appropriate punishment for politicians who commit electoral offence.

“So many elections have been nullified by the court. But, so far, not a single person has been persecuted. It shows lack of will on the part of INEC which has the role in the electoral act to prosecute electoral offenders,” he said, stressing that the inability of the relevant authorities to prosecute electoral thieves could be described as a conspiracy to allow electoral thieves and robbers get away with their offences.

He stated that with the determination of the court now, and that of the INEC chairman’s commitment to conduct credible elections, no rigger would get away with electoral frauds again. “With what the court is doing now, those who are perpetrating the fraud will now know that the game is over, that the only way they can get elected is to win the majority of the votes.”

Meanwhile, the honouree, Prince Tony Momoh has said that many journalists are ignorant of the roles they were asked to play by the constitution, stating that media would only thrive when the practitioners know their roles and be able to carry them out.

He explained that the role of the press as empowered by the constitution was to monitor the arms of the government for the masses. “There must be monitoring of the system. But how much of the monitoring will you do if you don’t know what to monitor”, he queried adding that the media has not been at home and persuasive in setting agenda.

Speaking on the topic,“Growth of and Need for a Fourth Estate”, the guest speaker, Prof Sylvanus Ekwelie said though, the fourth estate has grown in the country both in real and relative terms, it cannot thrive in a freewheeling regime. He stated that the need for a more effective fourth estate of the republic has become self- evident against the background of social diversity, economic development, political evolution and the demands of modernization.