Electoral Hub wants stakeholders’ synergy for violence-free poll
The Electoral Hub, an affiliate of the Initiative for Research, Innovation and Advocacy in Development (IRIAD), has called for synegy among stakeholders to ensure that the 2023 general election is violence free.
Princess Hamman-Obels, the Executive Director, Electoral Hub, said this at a policy roundtable on 2023 general election in Abuja on Wednesday.
She said that the threat of violence during and after the election must be addressed properly.
Hamman-Obels urged Nigerians to shun money inducement by politicians saying that both the seller and the buyer of votes would be guilty of election malpractice.
She advised Nigerians to promote peace and desist from hate speech and other vices that could cause violence during the elections.
According to her, the security challenge that led to the destruction of the office of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), would affect the commission’s preparations for the election.
“This election will mark a milestone in Nigeria’s democratic history, as it is the first time we have seen what looks like a very tight race election.
“Besides being a tight race election, there are lots of other indices; we are talking about the current happening, fuel scarcity, currency scarcity, a lot of other indices including the fact that there is a threat of voter suppression.
“There is general insecurity across the country in the South-East, North-East, and the other pockets of insecurity across the country and the current naira scarcity is adding to the tension.
“Without over flogging issues, election and insecurity are very critical and is something that we should consider, it is timely now because the elections are just three days away,” she said.
Hamman-Obels said that this called for more introspection and reflection looking at how stakeholdes could be more conscious in terms of security.
“So one of the reasons we are holding this meeting is so that we can come up with some actionable recommendations that will guarantee security and safety during the elections .
“We need to start thinking of how we can mitigate any possibility of violence,vote buying and other electoral malpractice,” she said
Prof. Okechukwu Ibeanu, a former National Commission of INEC said the remote cause of electoral violence had to do with non usage and implementation of recommendations from various panels.
Ibeanu also listed others as voter suppression, logistic/technical failure, over deployment or non-deployment of security in certain areas, incitement/fake news and hate speech among others .
He said that to stem such violence, there was need to for the establishment of Election Administration Agency (EAA), and a system for holding people accountable for their actions.
“I think one way to begin to look at this is to say that Electoral violence is any violence that occurs around the election.
“There is the other extreme, which thinks about it as violence that is directly related an electoral activity.
“Ahead of the elections some things I will like to be checked are: the question of voter suppression, security. logistics failure or technological failure among others.”
Ibeanu called on Nigerians and state to perform their responsibilities and that their should be consequences for not doing so.
Also speaking, the Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), Prof, Adele Jinadu, said law and order has not effectively been used to protect the citizens.
Jinadu said that going into the general elections, more should be done to compliment the effort of INEC in securing the electoral environment.
“I think in looking at the preparation of INEC for the elections, we need to separate what INEC has been doing.
“Since 2011,they have been doing their very best to prepare for elections learning lessons from one election circle to the other.
“However, what has not changed is the environment which elections are conducted and that is beyond the control of INEC,” Jinadu said.
