Its Vice chairman, Mr. Titus Hyundu, said the association had agreed to support the conduct of credible elections by identifying electoral defaulters and getting them arrested.

” If there is any challenge at all, it should be administrative; maybe there is not enough finance to pay the lawyers but legally speaking, there is no challenge with INEC prosecuting offenders,” Hyundu said.

However, an INEC Director, Mrs. Rose Mangkam, shared a contrary view, blaming the government for not implementing the Justice Mohammed Uwais report on Electoral Reform which suggested the creation of a commission for INEC to handle electoral offences.

Ballot box at a polling station in Ekiti state

According to Mangkam, the wholesale implementation of the report will enable INEC to have it’s own lawyers who will undertake investigation of offenders and prosecute them.

A lawmaker, Mr Dave Iorhemba, said INECs proposal for the deployment of soldiers to monitor the elections, already approved, would undermine the gains of the country’s democracy.

The former speaker of the Benue House of Assembly, said the constitution was unambiguous over whose duties it was to maintain internal security and wondered the reasons for such proposals.

“Let not our electoral process be seen as a war path; I am totally against the militarisation of the process.”

In Gombe State, a stalwart of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mallam Sullaiman Hassan, accused lawmakers at the NASS of stalling the passage of the bill on Electoral Act for selfish interest.

“They will make sure the bill is not passed so that they will continue with the practices that brought them in to power,” he said.

In Ebonyi, stakeholders said that issues of effective enforcement of guidelines and time table by INEC and delay in passing the electoral act would pose serious challenges to the conduct of the elections.

Chief Samuel Okobe, Secretary of a faction of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Abakaliki, doubted the ability of INEC to effectively enforce the guidelines and time table.

“The incessant crises rocking several political parties as a result of factionalisation of leadership might affect the timely nomination of candidates to fly their flags at the polls.’’

Mrs Chinwe Iroha, a Civil Liberties Organistion (CLO) member, decried the proposed deployment of the military by INEC, for the elections.

“This is a brazen violation of the peoples’ rights and an indictment on the police capability to discharge their duties.’’

On the proposal for independent candidates, he said: “An independent candidate would not be under any form of pressure from anyone, as it was only when this provision is made, that the country would produce good leaders.”

But stakeholders in Lagos State, particularly party leaders, lawmakers and civil societies identified lack of regulation of sale of nomination forms, 90-day campaign period and poor enforcement as some shortcomings of INEC guidelines.

The National Secretary of the National Conscience Party (NCP), Mr Ayodele Akele, said that INEC must regulate the sale of nomination forms by parties.

He said that the cost of the forms made it difficult for an average Nigerian with leadership qualities to contest for election.

Akele said that the 90-day period which INEC provided for electioneering campaigns was not enough.

He said that there was the need for the electorate to have enough time to listen to manifestos and know candidates better to be able to choose wisely.

Dr Joe Okei-Odumakin, a human rights activist and President of Women Arise – an NGO – said that adequate funding of INEC would be critical to the success of the 2015 polls.

“I am hoping that the recommendations of the National Conference which, I am a member of, would have been adopted before the 2015 general elections,” she added.

Contributing, some Lagos State lawmakers condemned non-adherence to electoral guidelines and timetable by some politicians and political parties.