By Ikechukwu Nnochiri
In the wake of the 2007 general elections, widely regarded as flawed, the late President Umaru Yar’Adua established a 22‑member Electoral Review Committee to examine the exercise and advise on areas requiring reform.
Yar’Adua, who was displeased with the do-or-die approach that characterised the election that brought him to power, vowed that future polls in the country would be free, fair, and credible.
The Electoral Reform Committee, inaugurated on August 28, 2007, was headed by no less a personality than a former Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Mohammed Uwais.
Members of the committee included prominent figures such as Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi, Justice Godwin U. Ononiba, Alhaji Musiliu A.K. Smith, Dr. Olisa Agbakoba, Dr. Sheikh Ahmed Lemu, Prof. Attahiru M. Jega, Prof. Grace A. Alele-Williams, Dr. Jibrin Ibrahim, Prof. Okon E. Uya, Gen. Oladayo Popoola, Barr. Festus Okoye, Msgr. Matthew Hassan Kukah, and Prof. Philip T. Ahire (secretary), among others.
Primarily, the committee was tasked with diagnosing and recommending solutions to Nigeria’s recurring electoral challenges.
At the conclusion of the assignment, the committee, in its 254-page landmark report, made recommendations that boldly addressed the structural deficiencies in the country’s electoral system.
Among the recommendations was a constitutional amendment to insulate the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from the political influence of the executive arm of government, both in terms of its composition and its funding.
The Committee suggested that the power to appoint members of the INEC board be transferred from the President to the National Judicial Council (NJC), while INEC’s funding would become a first-line charge on the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation.
It emphasised that there should be no swearing-in of any candidate until any petition against the election had been conclusively determined.
Another major pillar of the Uwais report was the recommendation for the establishment of a Special Electoral Offences Commission to try electoral offenders.
The idea stemmed from the historic failure to hold accountable those who engage in various disruptive actions, including ballot snatching, multiple voting, vote-buying, manipulation of election outcomes, and violence.
While the Federal Government accepted many recommendations in principle, most remain unimplemented due to political resistance and constitutional limitations.
The report continues to serve as a touchstone in debates over electoral reform.
Each election cycle throws up the push for an independent body to try electoral offenders.
Following deadly riots that broke out across several northern states after the 2011 general elections, President Goodluck Jonathan constituted a panel to unearth the root causes of the violence and make far-reaching recommendations.
The 22-member panel, which was led by a notable Islamic scholar and jurist, Sheikh Ahmed Lemu, in its report, endorsed the Uwais report’s recommendation for the establishment of an Electoral Offences Commission.
Likewise, both the 2014 National Conference and the Senator Ken Nnamani Electoral Reform Committee also validated the recommendation.
The reluctance of successive governments to act on these bold proposals is itself telling—a quiet testament to both the enduring relevance and the political inconvenience of the recommendations.
Pervasive electoral violence, vote-buying, voter suppression, and logistical failures that trailed the 2023 general elections laid bare the consequences of the unaddressed issues.
Hope simmered in July 2021 after the Senate, under the 9th Assembly, passed the “National Electoral Offences Bill 2021” as part of efforts for a broader electoral reform.
The bill, which was sponsored in 2019 by a Senator who represented Borno North, Abubakar Kyari, provided restrictions and sanctions for violations of electoral laws.
The then Chairman of the Senate Committee, Kabiru Gaya, said the bill not only sought to establish an Electoral Offences Commission but also made provisions for decisive deterrence through efficient criminal prosecution of electoral offenders.
He noted that since the advent of democracy in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic in 1999, there was hardly any election in which electoral offences had not occurred.
“Successive elections at the national, state, and local government levels have been marred by irregularities, with political players resorting to violence to outsmart each other to achieve victory.
“No doubt, electoral offences remain a significant threat to credible, free, and fair elections in Nigeria, where elections heighten political tension and trigger violence,” he added.
He explained that INEC has enough challenges to grapple with, a situation that does not permit it to effectively prosecute election-related offences.
“This accounts for just a few convictions for electoral offences in the realm of criminal litigation in Nigeria.
“The above underscores the necessity of an active justice system for the prosecution of electoral offenders, which remains critical in ensuring a decrease in the level of electoral impunity and a reversal in the persistent trend of electoral offences,” Gaya added.
The Bill comprised 7 Parts and 46 Clauses.
In 2022, the House of Representatives consolidated four separate bills that also sought to establish an Electoral Offences Commission.
The bills were sponsored by Hon. Francis Uduyok, Hon. Aishatu Dukku (then Chairman, House Committee on Electoral Matters), Hon. Kingsley Chinda, as well as the one the Senate transmitted for concurrence.
Despite the progress that was made at the Senate, the bill stalled, even as the then leadership of INEC publicly urged the National Assembly to speed up the legislative process.
The then INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, argued that the electoral body lacked the necessary facilities to arrest and thoroughly investigate electoral offences.
In the aftermath of the 2023 elections, the agitation picked up again.
The House of Representatives, in May 2025, passed a bill to create a National Electoral Offences Commission, driven partly by the over 100 deaths recorded during the 2023 presidential election.
Despite over a decade of committee recommendations and several bills passed by one legislative chamber or another, the idea of an Electoral Offences Commission never scaled through both the Senate and the House of Representatives to receive presidential assent.
With Nigeria’s electoral system still beset by credibility concerns, there have been renewed calls for the Tinubu administration to revisit and implement the Uwais Report, particularly as the nation approaches another general election cycle.
While electoral offences such as vote buying, ballot snatching, impersonation, and official misconduct are clearly spelled out in the Electoral Act 2026, weak enforcement remains the core problem.
INEC lacks investigative and prosecutorial capacity, leaving it dependent on the police.
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has, since 2015, compiled the names of persons and institutions that have been indicted for committing electoral offences by various Election Tribunals and Courts across the federation.
So far, the only notable election-related trial to be successfully concluded involved the conviction of a university don, Prof. Peter Ogban, who served as an INEC Returning Officer.
In March 2021, he was sentenced to three years in prison and fined N100,000 by a High Court in Akwa Ibom State for manipulating votes in the 2019 elections.
Ahead of the 2027 polls, the Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room, a coalition of over 70 organisations working to support credible, transparent, and inclusive elections in the country, recently renewed the call for an electoral offences commission.
The group maintained that incidents of harassment, thuggery, and vote buying that dogged the governorship election held in Osun State on August 15 were enough reason for the establishment of the long-desired commission.
As the nation inches towards another round of elections, it appears that, 18 years on, the recommendations in the Uwais Report remain alive on paper but dead in implementation.
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