Section 128
ThreateningA person who—
(a) directly or indirectly, by his or herself or by another person on his or her behalf, makes use of or threatens to make use of any force, violence or restrain;
(b) inflicts or threatens to inflict by his or herself or by any other person, any minor or serious injury, damage, harm or loss on or against a person in order to induce or compel that person to vote or refrain from voting, or on account of such person having voted or refrained from voting;
(c) by abduction, duress, or a fraudulent device or contrivance, impedes or prevents the free use of the vote by a voter or thereby compels, induces, or prevails on a voter to give or refrain from giving his vote; or
(d) prevents any political aspirant from free use of the media, designated vehicles, mobilisation of political support and campaign at an election, commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine of N1,000,000 or imprisonment for a term of three years.
This section penalises the use of threats in an election. Threatening use of force, violence or restraint on a voter includes:
Inflicting or threatening to inflict injury, harm or loss on a voter to induce, compel him/her to vote or refrain from voting
Preventing the exercise of the right to vote through abduction, duress, or fraud
Inflicting, threatening to inflict injury, damage, harm or loss against a person to compel voting or cause a person to refrain from voting
Use of abduction, duress, fraudulent device, or contrivance to impede or prevent a voter from freely voting or refraining to vote
Preventing any political aspirant from the free use of media, designated vehicles, mobilisation of political support and campaign
How to prove allegations of thuggery and violence in election petition:
Where there is a complaint about violence or thuggery there must be established nexus between the
perpetrators and the 1st respondent, - by credible evidence, it must be shown that the act adversely
affected the conduct of the election, and further that the act substantially affected the result of
the election. OYEGUN V. IGBINEDION (1992) 3 NWLR (PT. 226) 747
