An election violence monitoring and mitigation group report, conducted by a Civil Society Organisation, Kimpact Development Initiative(KDI), has shown that Nigeria recorded no fewer than 238 violence which resulted in 24 deaths during the 2023 general elections.
The report also showed that a total of 98 of the total violence occurred during the February 25 presidential election as 140 were reported during the March Governorship and State House of Assembly polls.
The Team Lead of KDI, Bukola Idowu, at the public presentation of the Nigerian election violence report on the 2023 general elections in Abuja titled, “The Quest for peaceful election: The Report and Documentation of KDI’s 2023 general election security interventions and Assessments,” prepared with support from the National Endowment for Democracy and International Republican Institute.
Idowu explained: “In total, we had looked at about 238 cases of election violence, which is spread across the country, and not good enough and each of them has their perpetrators and then also the victims, which we have close to 900 victims, and at the same time, reported 24 cases of electoral death.”
He, therefore, called for collaboration between agencies, adding that security agencies should predicate their deployment on early warning systems.
Speaking further, He said, this has proven to be one of the potent ways to mitigate electoral violence based on the findings that the higher the presence of security forces in a community, the lower the number of electoral violence recorded.
He urged the government to give zero tolerance to the illegal proliferation of arms before, during and after the elections, stressing that recruitment and arming of thugs played a huge contributing role in electoral violence recorded in the sample states.
The report, however, recommended that INEC, the Police and the Federal Ministry of Justice should ensure the prosecution of electoral offenders as this will serve as deterrence to other electoral offenders and this also underscores the urgent need for the Electoral Offences Commission.
Other recommendations are: “The CSOs and the media need to pay close attention and hugely condemn the subtle abuse of power by the incumbent government who places restrictions on political groups from using public venues for their campaigns. It is increasingly becoming a major causative factor of electoral violence.
“The independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission need to rise up to the occasion to prosecute offenders involved in vote buying and selling as this will serve as a deterrent for others.”
Meanwhile, the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC)’s National Commissioner and Chairman, Outreach and Partnership Committee, Prof. Kunle Ajayi, noted that the revelation of 238 cases of violence recorded during the violence was an improvement compared to previous polls.
He gave assurance that the commission would continue to enhance conditions that would ensure that elections across the country are peaceful.
He commended KDI for the report while saying that the general elections, were relatively peaceful according to their report,
“From what we know the election was generally and relatively peaceful, even more peaceful than the 2019 general elections”.
“The report agrees with the report of INEC and we have to commend those who made it possible. In summary, the cases reported and tracked were lower than that in 2019. If you also look at the number of victims recorded that was also lower compared to 2019 and that is an achievement.
“One thing you should know is that there is no way you can record 100 per cent when it comes to violence on election day. Those who create problems will always do so even if you bring all the policemen in the world to that election. But in terms of trend, we have a lower number of cases that occurred this year compared to previous elections and by implication, we’ll continue to improve on that and enhance conditions so that we continue to make our elections peaceful.”
“INEC is taking the issue of electoral offences very seriously and it won’t be like before that people will just commit an offence and go away with it”. He added.
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