Voting rights for prisoners

The judgement is a watershed in the annals of Nigeria’s democratisation process.
Denying them what has always been their statutory right in the first place, until the intervention of the judiciary to restore it, is a serious indictment on the part of those whose responsibility it was to shed light on and uphold the law regarding the status of prison inmates in the electoral process.
The presiding judge in Benin, Justice Mohammed Lima, in his ruling, declared that it was “unconstitutional, illegal, irregular and unlawful” for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to deny the inmates the right to vote.
He pointed out that being an inmate should not impede the registration and voting right of the affected persons, under section 24 of the Electoral Act, and that inmates’ exclusion from elections conducted in Nigeria was an act that was “illegal, ultra vires, and null and void.”
The judge asked INEC officials to update and include the names of citizens in the custody of the Nigeria Prisons Service in the voter’s list.
This is a reasonable and pragmatic legal foundation that should spur a modest and decent change in the way and manner inmates are treated under the Electoral Act and in the electoral process generally. Of the over 56,000 inmates in the nation’s prisons, 40,000 of them are awaiting trial and, are under the statutes, considered to be innocent in the eyes of the law and should be so treated.
Even convicts, unless otherwise stated in the ruling of the courts, cannot be said to have been stripped of voting rights, which would amount to taking away their right of citizenship. Officials of INEC should expedite action in complying with the court’s decision on the matter. It is apposite that reports suggested that the Commission was already studying the court’s orders in order to properly situate them within existing legal provisions.
The complaint raised by INEC in respect of its many challenges ahead of next month’s general elections is understandable. To begin to register the inmates even when those who are duly registered to vote are still struggling to get their Permanent Voter’s Cards (PVCs) would introduce new logistical problems that could strain the already burdened shoulders of the commission.
Equally daunting for the commission would be how to get people displaced by the conflicts in the troubled North-East geo-political zone and scattered in various Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps across parts of the country to exercise their franchise in the next elections.
These are no doubt practical challenges requiring practical and sustainable solutions as the elections get closer. However, the Commission could still start the reviewing of the process of accommodating the inmates’ right to vote in future elections from now to give them a sense of full citizenship and belonging.
The National Assembly should also review the existing legislation to accommodate the concerns raised by the electoral organisation, especially as these have to do with provisions of having people vote where they registered.
Such review could encourage the establishment of polling units close to prisons and temporary ones at the IDP camps, while also taking into cognisance the agitation by Nigerians in the Diaspora to also be allowed to participate in the electoral process.