Commissioner Sanneh is right that the IEC has a mandatory duty to refer cases. But that duty does not stand between citizens and the police.
In response to reporting by The Standard Newspaper, 14 May 2026
According to The Standard, the Head of Police Prosecutions and Legal Affairs, Commissioner Abdoulie Sanneh, told the police media unit that citizens cannot walk into a police station to report election-related offenses. The mandate to do so, he said, belongs exclusively to the Independent Electoral Commission, and police have no authority to act unless the IEC brings the matter forward first.
He is right about one thing. Section 127 of the Elections Act, 2025, imposes a mandatory duty on the IEC to refer all offenses under the Act to the Attorney General for prosecution. That obligation is real. But Commissioner Sanneh has treated a duty placed on the IEC as a wall between citizens and the police. The law erects no such wall.
A duty imposed on the IEC to refer cases to the Attorney General is not the same thing as a prohibition on citizens reporting crimes to police, or on police investigating them.
Section 178(2) of the Constitution gives the police their mandate: to be equipped and maintained to perform their traditional role of maintaining law and order, and such other functions as may be prescribed by an Act of the National Assembly. That power flows from the supreme law. No ordinary Act of Parliament, including the Elections Act, can diminish it. When a citizen reports a forged identity document used at a registration center, they are not invoking election law. They are reporting a crime, and the police are constitutionally bound to receive that report.
It is a crime under ordinary law. Sections 296 to 299 of the Criminal Offenses Act, 2025, define forgery as the making of a false document with the intent to defraud. Presenting such a document to register fraudulently fits that definition precisely. Section 299 goes further: intent to defraud is presumed by law the moment a false document is used in a way that could harm someone. Police need not wait for the IEC before acting. Section 22(a) of the Criminal Procedure Act, 2025 gives officers the power to arrest without a warrant anyone they reasonably suspect of a cognizable offense. Forgery is cognizable. The IEC is nowhere in that chain.
Section 102, also cited in support of the Commissioner’s position, does not assist it. That section deals with a court reporting findings of corrupt practice to the IEC at the end of an election petition trial so that the IEC can strike names off the voters’ roll and sanction parties. It is a post-trial electoral remedy and has nothing to do with how a crime is first reported or by whom.
It is also worth noting that even the IEC’s own referral channel under Section 127 does not remove the police from the picture. When the IEC refers an offense to the Attorney General, the AG still needs the police to investigate before any prosecution can proceed. The only situation where that step is already complete is Section 102, where a court has made findings after a full trial. Everywhere else, even the IEC’s path leads back to the police.
Three channels exist in the law, and none displaces the others:
| Criminal complaint
Citizen → Police → investigation Constitution s.178(2) · CPA s.22(a) · COA ss.296–299 · Elections Act s.125 |
IEC referral
IEC → Attorney General → prosecution Elections Act s.127 |
Electoral petition
Court finding → IEC sanctions Elections Act s.102 |
Section 125 of the Elections Act settles any remaining doubt. It reads: “Nothing in this Act shall in any way prejudice or affect the application of the Criminal Offenses Act to an offense relating to public elections.” The Elections Act says, in its own words, that it does not displace ordinary criminal law. Therefore, the Commissioner cannot use the Act to reach a conclusion that the Act itself forbids.
The concern that police should not be drawn into chaotic or politically motivated complaints is understandable. But the answer to that is sound police judgment, not a legally incorrect rule that leaves citizens with nowhere to turn when they witness genuine fraud. Telling people they have no recourse to the police does not prevent disorder. It invites it.
To citizens: If you witness what appears to be fraud at a registration center, report it calmly to the police. You are not barred. Do not take the law into your own hands.
To the police: Receiving a citizen’s report of election-related crime is not outside your mandate. It is the heart of it.
By Sarjo Barrow, Esq.
