Barely 3 weeks to the 2023 General Election, there has been a heightened tension amongst Nigeria as insecurity still threatens the country.
The past General Election which was concluded in 2011 and 2015 respectively has recorded Electoral violence before, during and after the election which has yet posed another major threat to the 2023 General Election has nothing has been put in place to curtail those security threat.
News Digest reports that, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has suggested for the postponement of the election due to the incessant attacks which has continue to ravage not just the political sphere but also the country at large.
Speaking with a concerned Nigerian, Mr Ijiofor, who lamented about the current state of the country that we find ourselves in not just the security alone but in all aspects.
In his words, he said, “I as a person, I have lost hope in this country. As we clamour for a change thing turns out Negative the more. At this point, we don’t even think our votes counts. If truly our votes counts, we wouldn’t be where we are now.”
“We are really in a messed up state. We are only praying for God’s intervention as that’s the only hope in this moment. Even our leaders can’t understand the way everything is going themselves” he added.
Speaking with another Nigerian, who pleaded anonymity because of the fear of victimisation, has said, the country has always been in a very worrisome state. There’s nothing else to be done.
“For me, I would cast my vote for my preferred candidate, and I know that God will take over. Because at this point, there’s nothing to be done. Things have gotten really worst and very rotten. I just pray that God help us in this country.”
Speaking with another concerned citizen, Mr John, he said, “the first thing we need to look into before doing any election is Security. Any election without security is death. The Government and the INEC officials has to assure of adequate security in all zones of the world at least to some extent.”
“Our rights as citizens shouldn’t be jeopardized. Our life has to be safeguarded. We have heard of happenings in the past elections, and we don’t want the same to happen this time” he added.
Security Threatened
As the 2023 elections draws near, Nigeria is at risk of experiencing another storm of election-related violence, particularly as the security pressures have increased in intensity and expanded in scope this time. Among the regions mainly untouched by high levels of electoral violence in previous election cycles was the southeast region.
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As the site of an emerging insurgency led by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) – a secessionist group to separate from the Nigerian State –and its militant arm, the Eastern Security Network (ESN), the region has recorded an increasing number of clashes with public security forces since 2020 including attacks on police stations, prisons, courts and the offices of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Nigeria’s electoral management body.
According to findings by News Digest, more than 100 people were killed by security personnel in the first four months of 2020 alone, while 21 policemen were killed in three months alone that same year. Added to this mix are troubling reports of human rights violations by the public security forces in Nigeria and an overly militarized approach employed by the government to address the problem. Even more disturbing is that IPOB had begun to use its military arm the ESN to enforce sit-at-home orders and had threatened a large-scale boycott of the 2021 gubernatorial elections in Anambra State, a southeast state and one of the strongholds of the separatist group, although ultimately did not enforce the boycott that time, and later came out with a statement to say they did not actually mean it.
Nigeria’s Northern region had also been the epicenter of increasing violence from armed groups referred to as ‘bandits’ or ‘unknown gunmen’ in the Nigerian media until January 2022, when the Nigerian government declared them a terror group. Major hotspots for banditry in Nigeria are Zamfara, Katsina, Kebbi, Kaduna, Sokoto, Nasarawa and Niger. Unfortunately, these formerly unorganized criminal entities have evolved into an organized criminal network, willing to enforce the destructive ideologies of extremist groups like Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) who have continued to threaten peaceful elections in Nigeria since 2011.
Recently, these groups have been involved in kidnapping school children and other victims while extorting huge sums from their families; they have also attack a passenger train and shot down an Air Force fighter jet. More worrying in light of the 2023 election is that these opportunist groups can be used to perpetrate election violence or stop elections in strongholds of opposition politicians.
Typically, in the lead-up to previous elections, violence from cult groups intensifies as they battle for control over an area. This control provides them the leverage to negotiate with political parties to ‘deliver’ the elections in that area a term used to describe a situation where the use of violence is deployed to give a particular politician or his party an advantage in the polls. Thus, rivalries and supremacy battles between cult groups have become an extension of political battles as rival politicians fund opposing cult groups to gain an advantage over others. This was the case in the 2015 and 2019 elections, and the continued existence of these groups and competitive politics in Nigeria pose significant risks in the 2023 elections.
Reacting to this, the Police Public Relations Officer, Oyo State Command, Adewale Osifeso, he said, “We have comprehensive security coverage emplaced before, during and after the election. Oyo State is relatively calm, and it remains so”
“I want to assure all Nigerians that all efforts are geared towards ensuring a safe Election” he added.
