The continued resort to violence before and during elections has clearly demonstrated that Nigerian politicians are yet to unlearn their bad ways in cutting corners to ensure electoral victory.
Following desperate ambition by politicians to cling to power at all cost, election years in the country have become a period of anxiety that presage signs to the effect that the country is heading for the precipice if not well managed. Electioneering periods have always presented peculiar challenges that are fraught with schemes to subvert the will of the people. It is against this backdrop that perennial anxieties over the ill-omened prognosis have become the burden of Nigeria. Ahead of the conduct of the 2015 polls, many international organisations, including a United States body, Fund for Peace, had in 2014 predicted the country’s disintegration, hinging the doomsday prediction on security challenges caused by the activities of the dreaded Boko Haram group that had turned the North-east, especially Borno State, into a horrifying global cynosure of barbarity, Nigeria escaped bloodshed by the whiskers after former President Goodluck Jonathan conceded defeat to Muhammadu Buhari without fuss.
Presently, the thick clouds of frightening uncertainties are slowly gathering as the nation marches into an election year. Politicians are said to be arming thugs, just as governors are compromising security and electoral officers to either return to power or facilitate the victory of their proxies. Thuggery and resort to the use of force to subjugate the political choice are now the order of the day. While opposition candidates and their party agents have become targets of intimidation, the security of observers and journalists is no longer guaranteed at polling units.
The shameless display of inordinate quest by some governors to cling to power despite their poor performance has become disquieting and prognosticate trouble ahead. Few months to the 2019 polls, some of these governors are deploying all tricks within and outside the rules to maintain their hold on power, with the opposition parties alleging that the elections have already been rigged even before they are conducted.
Central to the rigging process is the compromise by security agencies and electoral officers to favour the incumbent. If the recently concluded governorship poll in Osun State is anything to go by, then the coming days could witness a return to tension-soaked days. During the recently concluded Osun re-run poll, there were reports of electoral agents and opposition members being subjected to rough treatment as the rerun was not only turned into a war, but the incumbent government displayed an unacceptable disposition to defeat its opponent by all means, fair or foul. The missions of the United States, European Union and the United Kingdom described the re-run as characterised with high rates of interference and intimidation of voters. The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) condemned the harassment of observers and journalists duly accredited to cover the re-run, some of whom were arrested for taking pictures around the polling area. The organisation dismissed the entire exercise as a sham.
With elections a few months away, it is the opinion of this newspaper that efforts must be embarked upon to discourage the use of violence by incumbents to return to power willy-nilly. It is pertinent to note that allowing demons of destruction to unleash violence amounts to encouraging lawlessness among the citizenry. The refusal by the men and women in power to bow down to the wishes of citizens as expressed through the ballot remains the greatest danger to democracy.
The sanctity of the ballot, in our view, can only be maintained by a transparent process that respects the choice of the electorate. When politicians, in their desperation for power, subvert the choice of the people, it gives rise to violence that is capable of throwing the entire country into avoidable strife. We, therefore, urge all stakeholders, including the security agencies and electoral umpires, to do all within their power to embrace neutrality in defence of democracy. Herein lies the panacea to ending our recurrent resort to violence during electioneering periods. We are certain that playing according to international democratic best practices is the only sure way to avert the doomsday predictions of those who do not wish the country well
