The police and 2015 elections

Last week, I received invitations to two events which took place here in Abuja within 24 hours of each other. And each was on the issue of hate speeches and the need for everyone to play his or her role to ensure that this month’s elections and their outcomes are peaceful. These two different events, […]

Last week, I received invitations to two events which took place here in Abuja within 24 hours of each other. And each was on the issue of hate speeches and the need for everyone to play his or her role to ensure that this month’s elections and their outcomes are peaceful. These two different events, but dwelling on the same concern, underscore the realization by many that if caution is not exercised, we may have the elections but may lose the country itself, a very unfortunate development that no one desires or prays for.
The first was a press conference jointly organised by the People’s Democratic Institute (PDI), the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), civil society organisations and Experts Team on the 2015 General Elections which held at Denis Hotel in Wuse 2 on Thursday, January 30. It was addressed by Dr Lanre Adebayo, D.G of the PDI, a non-state intellectual resource centre committed to deepening democracy in Nigeria and in other parts of Africa. The theme of the address was apt: “For the sake of Nigeria’s Electorates and the Nigeria State’’.
The meat of the groups’ address was that in the past few weeks they have studied the current political development in the country and the nation’s preparation for this month’s elections and have come to the conclusion that there are three major areas which require serious national attention. The three, they said, are: ‘’the intense and sustained dissemination of hate messages in the course of political campaigns, the current unprecedented partisanship of the media and the problem of the dissemination of permanent voters’ card’’.
The following day, I was called upon by Inter-Gender Development Centre, an NGO based in Jos, to help facilitate a one-day voter education workshop. The workshop was funded by the European Union through the Democratic Governance for Development (DGD) and its goal was to provide voter education and mobilise the electorate for the 2015 elections. The theme was that this month’s elections must be devoid of violence or else Nigeria will self-destroy. Everyone seems to fear that Nigeria will implode if urgent steps are not taken to ensure that things go well in the course of the forthcoming elections.
My concern here is that while everyone is correctly pointing accusing fingers at the politicians, media practitioners and the youth who can easily be recruited as thugs to cause mayhem, not many appear to be remembering one important stakeholder in the Nigerian Project whose role in these all-important elections will decide whether Nigeria survives or goes under. That group, to my mind, is the Nigerian Police.
It is great, as reported in the media a few days ago, that the police high command has decided to take the message of the Abuja Peace Accord recently signed by the 14 presidential candidates and their parties taking part in the elections, to the grassroots. It means the police realize how important peace would be to the conduct and outcomes of the elections. While it is important that the police carry this message to the people, I think that it will be more important if the police come together and their IG vows to them that he will be non-partial and that he expects the rest of the force to be absolutely neutral in the course of their work during and after the elections. We all know that there can be no peace if there is no real or perceived fairness and justice.
There is a perception, whether rightly or wrongly, among some Nigerians that the police might be tempted to be partisan. Given the fact that these elections are going to be the most keenly contested we will see in years, it will be a great tragedy for Nigeria if the police or INEC and other institutions that are supposed to act as umpires decides to take sides. What the IG may not know is that within his troops, there are men and women who sympathise with some of the different parties. If therefore the rank and file are even subtly ordered to favour the cause of one of the parties, he will have near mutiny on his hands. Nigeria has been so thoroughly polarized by the antics of unscrupulous politicians that national institutions like the police must not do anything that will exacerbate the divisions that have unfortunately been created.
I am speaking as a partisan in the cause of Mother Nigeria. I have so far not seen any signs or intentions of partisanship on the part of the police. But it is necessary to remind that organisation that some of the fate of Nigeria lies in their hands. What they do or fail to do will go a long way in determining what happens in this month of elections and beyond.
Nigerians have become very sophisticated people and can read any actor’s steps or body language several miles afar off. In the past when the EFCC was used to prosecute some political objectives, Nigerians read what was happening and cried foul. Now that the stakes are even much higher, so many eyes will be open to read what the institutions of state will do in this crucial month in the life of our nation. The police therefore must realize that Nigerians will watch their steps with binoculars.
My humble advise to the ordinary men and women of the police force is that if they have perceived that their ogas are likely to be partisan, they should begin from now to pile pressure on them to maintain neutrality because it is the ordinary police men who will be on the streets these tense days and who may face the wrath of the people if it is seen that they have not been the honest brokers that they are expected to be.
When some Nigerians express the fear that they might be violence, my response is that if all of us refuse to be violent and take steps to prevent violence from others and the institutions created to maintain peace carry out their responsibility honestly and diligently, from where will violence come? Will demons ascend from hell to do it without the promptings of men?