Nigeria must strengthen its election security methods to avoid the type of violence and voter suppression that happened during the gubernatorial and presidential elections, the Transition Monitoring Group has said.
The civil society election observation group dispatched 768 roaming observers to 768 local government areas in the nation to monitor the gubernatorial and house of assembly elections on March 18. It also built up a central data centre to examine the data acquired from the field.
The findings show that the March 18 governorship elections were the most violent in recent memory.
The civil society expressed displeasure in a statement on Thursday at the police’s failure to take action against political party members who made threats against individuals because of their political interest.
“The failure of the security operatives to apprehend and prosecute the issuant of such threats further emboldened them to unleash mayhem on citizens on the election day,” the statement read.
Observations: Vote buying, voter intimidation, low turnout, electoral security and BVAS malfunction
According to the 768 observers in the group, there were both positive and negative developments in the March 18 elections.
There were troubling instances of vote buying regardless of the lack of cash, which President Buhari has said contributed to the free and fair February and March elections.
The TMG notes that the conduct of the elections was hampered by open displays of vote buying in states including Kaduna, Kano, Cross River, Ogun, Ebonyi, and Bauchi. When officers of the Economic Financial Crime Commission tried to apprehend the culprits, they were also assaulted by the crowd.
In most states in the federation, the “elections officials waited boringly for voters in several polling units.” Nigeria has seen a proportional decline in voter turnout since 1999, despite hopes that election-related activity on social media may lead to increased involvement in the elections.
The TMG thinks that a significant factor in the low voter participation in the March 18 elections was the unchecked act of voter intimidation and the performance of the Independent National Electoral Commission during the presidential election.
Across the nation, it was observed that political thugs were snatching ballot boxes and destroying electoral materials. Despite the presence of security personnel, political thugs especially in Lagos made sure to scare voters.
The election included attacks on journalists and observers, the TMG reports. In Kano, an irate group violently attacked a TMG observer as he went about his duty.
Even though the governorship elections had a lot of anomalies, they also held some promises.
Read Also:
TMG saw a significant shift from the presidential election, which was marked by the mobilization of voters along religious and ethnic lines. The organization observes that because voting patterns were mostly clear of ethnic and religious attachments in Kaduna, Cross River, Taraba, Delta, and Adamawa, the democratic process there was inclusive and fair.
Election supplies were rapidly distributed to polling units for the governorship elections, as opposed to the presidential election. Because of this, INEC officials were able to set up accreditation and other voting processes significantly earlier across the nation.
When comparing the gubernatorial election to the presidential election three weeks prior, TMG found that the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), which authenticates the identity and eligibility of voters from their cards, worked more smoothly in the governorship election.
“Accreditation processes went smoothly with the device concluding the validation of a voter within a ten-second timeframe.
“Similarly, the Central Data Centre closely monitored the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal for real-time upload of results from the polling unit. The centre also noted an improvement as polling unit results were uploaded in real-time in some polling units,” the group reported.
In a few cases when BVAS malfunction was noted, TMG saw that the INEC personnel quickly fixed the issues.
Additionally, TMG notes that voters now feel an obligation to safeguard their votes both during and after voting.
“In Kano, citizens moved en-masse to escort polling unit results to the collation centres. These acts of peaceful resilience on the part of citizens are also commended as it shows the yearning of Nigerians for a truly democratic process.”
Credibility of Nigerian elections beyond INEC management – Auwal Rafsanjani
Auwal Rafsanjani, the chairman of the Transition Monitoring Group, has asked the police to track down the financiers of the thugs who unleashed mayhem on defenceless Nigerians during the general elections of 2023.
“The police must move to arrest those individuals and bring them to justice to serve as a deterrent in future elections,” he said.
Rafsanjani, who also leads the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, added that the electoral commission, INEC, must investigate any evidence of electoral malpractices brought to its attention and work to eliminate human interference in result management.
“Nigeria’s electoral system has the potential to bring about credible elections. It is to the extent that the commission is allowed to independently manage the elections that hinders credible elections in the country,” he said.
Rafsanjani continued by saying that security agencies must learn to perform their jobs as effectively as possible to ensure violence does not remain a tool for politicians to manipulate elections.
“As seen from the March 18th election, the credibility, freeness, and fairness of elections in Nigeria are beyond the management of the commission [INEC] alone,” he said.
