Is violent-free election possible?
The 2019 general election is here, and there is no doubt the atmosphere is charged and the politicians are on the field doing their best to persuade people to vote them to power again. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is doing the best ever to ensure hitch free election. Yet the drum of war […]
The 2019 general election is here, and there is no doubt the atmosphere is charged and the politicians are on the field doing their best to persuade people to vote them to power again. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is doing the best ever to ensure hitch free election. Yet the drum of war is loud and defeating. Lives of innocent Nigerians are daily lost and properties destroyed by hoodlums and the questions at our lips are: Can we have violence free elections? What are the causes of violence in our politics? What can we do to checkmate the violence?
Political violence is simply means the process of using extra-judicial means in the contest for exercising political power; include, intimidation, harassment, assassination, blackmail, arson, looting, physical assault psychological attacks and thuggery.
There is fear that election which is about three weeks away may suffer from the negative activities of the insurgents and hoodlums. It is hoped that the new Inspector General of Police Mr Mohammed Adamu will take charge of the policing of the general election to the success and peaceful conduct of the general election. We do not need prophet to tell us that 2019 election will be tense, but we can cob the violence if the security agents carry out their duties in line with the rule of engagement.
The failure of justice system is another factor that has allowed violence to persist for long. For a very long history, it is hard to come by political thugs that were sentence either to death or jail for perpetuating crime during and after election. In 2011 general election more than twenty innocent people were killed by hoodlums due to the facts that certain politicians lost their bids to win elections. Till date no record of the culprits is seen to have been tried for their animalistic behaviour. That is why it is always a festival of death at pre-election and during election as our leaders engaged their boys to attack and kill and go scot-free. In some cases the Attorney General of state applied nolle prosequi to terminate criminal prosecutions of state sponsored violence- agents.
That was the case in AG Kaduna v Mohammed 1983, and the Supreme Court held that the Attorney General of the state has that power to do so.
The issue of internal democracy has created a lot of tension and violence during the various political parties primaries. Even as at today some party are still in court of law over the fallout of the primaries election while some have been banned from presenting candidates for the forthcoming election. Twenty years of democracy ought to reflect on our political culture and to be a blessing to improve on our internal democratic practices. Unfortunately, the democrats are few in the political fields in our nation. The military incursions to our political process made a negative impact on our political process. The politics we practice is much more of a military than civil. Almost every practice here is militarised that possibly explains how the police are more of military in nature than being civil. Until we imbibe political culture that brings about internal democracy our politics will for long be violent prone.
While the 2015 election was fair to some degree in terms of fraudulent manipulation of the elections, the contributions of the foreign nations in appealing to contestants save lives and properties from avoidable violence. As we approach the February election the foreign nations are doing their best to persuade Nigerians to let the elections be free and fair. The neutrality of the security agents are issues that the US, UK and European Union are fearing may pose challenges to the elections. It is hoped that patriotisms will guide the security agents in their duties.
Yomi Obaditan, Osogbo