10/03/2018
ELECTIONS OF 2019 IN NIGERIA: FOR THE ERADICATION OF ELECTORAL VIOLENCE AND TOWARD FREE, FAIR, CREDIBLE, VIOLENCE FREE AND PEACEFUL CONDUCT
The expectation that election and peace settlement in the world’s most violent countries may lead eventually to a brave democratic world according to (Paul Collier of Oxford University, London,2009) can be said to be remote in the context of Nigeria.
This is especially by considering the result of the present investigation/research when virtually every respondent in Nigeria claims to have witnessed instances of violence during campaigns, at polling stations, and on election days.
The research findings further show that the electorates were not allowed their civic right of peacefully and willingly electing whom they chose. In the report of the 2008 electoral reform committee of Nigeria emphasis was made to perceive elections as a procedure for regulatory competition of political power through competition for votes.
It is, however discouraging to have found, through the present investigation that, the Nigerian mechanism for these competitions especially with respect to 2007/2011 general elections was not free of anarchy and violence.
Observers, including political leaders, subordinating politicians, other Government officials and the governed here referred as the electorates presented that the stakeholders in polity including contestants insist based on selfish interest that by hook or crook they must defeat the opposition.
According to the former Secretary of the Federal Electoral Commission (FEDECO) in 1979 Alhaji Ahmadu Kurfi, “basically, there is the perception of the people that rulers are not honest, that they are out to cheat them and not to help and improve their living chemistry. And the living chemistry as you know is bad that is the economic situation is very bad, people are very poor, many people, families have little to eat or drink clean water. But what do you expect when then, more than half the population earn less than $1 (one dollar) a day. So, there are not many factors that cause people react violently in some cases”.
To achieve success by all means, the stakeholders tend to sponsor unscrupulous individuals from within the community who are today referred to as hoodlums, thugs or bandits. These warriors are made to embattled whoever is not willing to succumb to their candidates/contestants and party instructions and/or choice. From the results, the election researchers/investigation identified that the situation in Kano and Katsina was not different from that of Kaduna State, Jigawa, Kebbi, Rivers, Enugu, Ekiti, Zanfara or Sokoto. The use of guns, fi****ms, swords, cutlasses, knives, canes and the likes had been popularized.
These are the kind of fears and retrogressive reports that were since envisaged by one political scientist in his publication .
The trend was that killing, brutality coupled with setting ablaze of public and private properties as well as creating total instability became the synonym for political election in Nigeria. Whether the implicated groups or the so called political mafias are ready to improve or not, respondents adjudged that a more serious leadership at the level of the countries Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) needed to be turned around.
Although the current Chairman of INEC Professor Yakubu is doing his best to conduct free and fair elections in 2019; with a view to save his credibility and integrity among global experts and elections professionals.
Perhaps, based on the foregoing demand for change, the President of Nigeria Muhammad Buhari (GCON) must allow (give him free hands). This has been approved by nearly all and sundry as he would perform to the expectation of all well meaning Nigerians and foreign stakeholders.
The issue of corruption and selfishness may then be checked to the bearest minimum in 2019 elections. And again, the use of PVC and the digital electoral system must be allowed to happen; as it use to happen in other democratic world. Otherwise, we are afraid that voters’ intimidation and violence, all aimed at silencing their voices may be recalcitrant.
The irony of the matter is that Nigerians have developed the oral tradition that whenever we talk of democratic election, it is associated with violence characterized by serious traumatic injury, mayhem and/or loses of life and properties. That fact has been implanted in Nigeria since early 1960s when democratic election became a matter of life and death. This made people to begin to think of democracy as “democrazy”.
It was understood that, the presidential system of government adopted by Nigeria is purely western tradition. But in the western world, there is belief that, democracy never fights one another. For example, the E.U. nations are unified and united by democratic system and common capitalist market economy. There are 28 countries and about 500 million people in EU, almost all of whom belong to the same religion, but speak different languages like in Nigeria. In this respect, this research/investigation writing argues that, unless Nigerians find a stable democratic system that will match their traditions and cultures, then peace, development and prosperity will not emerge.
Professor Attahiru Jega (Ibadan, 2007) asks: “how can genuine democratization be ensured? Can democracy be successful in the context of mass poverty? Is democracy incompatible with our values, orientation and cultures and traditions? Is democracy only possible in the context of a capitalist system? How credible and viable are alternative democratic conceptions? How can democracy be sustained? How can democracy be consolidated in countries such as Nigeria, with profound legacies of militarism and militarization?” Who can answer the above questions?
