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True love is the true definition of a perfect romance. Political parties should fulfil commitments their leaders have recently made to avoid inflammatory rhetoric, campaign peacefully, pursue grievances lawfully and rein in any supporters in the event of their defeat. The electoral authorities should intensify outreach to political parties aimed at winning their confidence and firm up logistical arrangements, particularly for election day.
Security agencies should act professionally, ensure neutrality between all parties, and finalise contingency plans for preventing or responding to violence. In addition to these national-level steps, the authorities should redouble efforts to prevent violence in hotspots. While policies should be tailored to each state, priorities include:. They should consider establishing an international working group, comprising prominent statespersons with sway in Nigeria, which could intervene in the event of a major crisis. Such a forum and working group helped lower tension and ensure a peaceful transition around the elections.
Those sending observers should pay particular attention to hotspots. Diplomats also could warn state-level politicians, many of whom travel frequently abroad, that those responsible for inciting violence could face travel bans, asset freezes and other targeted sanctions. Nigerians go to the polls in February to elect a president and national legislators and again in March to select governors and state assembly members.
With hundreds of sought-after posts up for grabs, and many races laced with communal tensions and bitter personal rivalries, the elections promise to be fiercely fought. The election management agency, Independent National Electoral Commission INEC , has 91 political parties on its register, 69 of which are presenting candidates for the presidency. Hide Footnote Yet the election faces significant dangers of disruption, some familiar, others recent and more worrying.
The vote was cleaner, but also deadlier, with more than people killed in post-election violence that targeted in particular minorities in northern cities. Nigerian elections are blighted by violence in large part because they are high-stakes battles for the huge rewards of public office, and in many states also for control of power and revenues between rival ethnic and religious identity groups. Impunity is rife: attackers are rarely punished due to deficits in both political will and judicial capacity.
Hide Footnote Violence has traditionally blighted all phases of the entire election season. Around voting, those same thugs invade polling centres and snatch materials and intimidate voters. After the vote, defeated parties and aggrieved constituencies launch protests, clashing with security forces; in , those clashes evolved into a major crisis across the north. Ahead of the elections, there have already been violent incidents.
Hide Footnote A number of factors heighten risks ahead. The piecemeal release of funds for INEC and the security agencies, largely due to bureaucratic red tape, may be delaying election arrangements and could threaten the administration and security of the polls. INEC says it anticipated delays and made contingency plans, but concerns remain over its preparations for elections that will be more logistically challenging than in , involving more parties, candidates and voters than the contests four years ago.
Hide Footnote Security agencies similarly claim readiness, yet as of 14 December exactly two months before the presidential polls , the federally controlled public safety agency, the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps NSCDC , said it had not received funds allocated to it by the National Assembly for the elections. Hide Footnote It needs this money to arrange for logistics ahead of elections among other expenses. Delays could thus hamper such arrangements, potentially jeopardising the security and credibility of the vote and creating grounds for violent post-election disputes.
The perceptions among opposition politicians that the security forces are partisan could also trigger violence around the polls. The conduct of federally controlled security agencies in recent gubernatorial elections in Ekiti and Osun states and their apparent dislike of some opposition leaders raise doubts about their impartiality.
Hide Footnote Such mistrust could fuel disputes and protests over results. Heightened insecurity in parts of the country adds risks, too. The escalation of herder-farmer violence in the first half of has ratcheted up ethnic and religious tensions in much of the Middle Belt. Neither of the two main parties enjoys a clear edge in those areas and the campaign there is likely to be hotly contested as Middle Belt votes could swing the presidential contest.
Already local politicians have stoked divisions among communities to shore up their bases. Uncertainty over how the major political camps will respond to losing, nationally or locally, adds further to the danger. But there is no guarantee that the parties and their supporters will respect this accord across the country, especially in areas where the vote suffers significant logistical deficiencies or is won with narrow margins.
For instance, on 29 November, the Civil Society Joint Action Committee, a coalition of civil society groups, warned of likely disturbances in twenty states. Hide Footnote That said, while problems are possible almost nationwide, concerns appear particularly high in six states, namely Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Kaduna, Kano, Plateau and Adamawa. This report looks closely at those concerns, laying out the risk factors specific to each of the six states.
It offers recommendations to both the Nigerian government and its foreign partners for mitigating the risks, both in especially conflict-prone states and nationwide. It is based on dozens of interviews with Nigerian officials, national- and local-level politicians, election monitors, diplomats, scholars and civil society leaders. Rivers state, in the oil-producing Niger Delta, has seen several fiercely fought elections, replete with vote buying, rigging, ballot box snatching and blocking of roads to hinder access to polling stations, as well as kidnappings and assassinations of candidates and prominent supporters.
In , it recorded the most election-related fatalities of any state, mostly occurring around the gubernatorial vote. Hide Footnote Counting down to , the factors fuelling the past attacks are still in place. First, the state remains a major theatre of the national contestation between the APC and PDP, the latter of which, except for a two-year interlude, has held power in the state since But because no one audits the expenditures, several state governors have embezzled the money and transferred it to their personal or political campaign accounts.
Not every governor has escaped justice for such transgressions; two former governors — Jolly Nyame Taraba and Joshua Dariye Plateau were jailed for corruption, in May and June respectively. Hide Footnote Because Rivers state, as a major oil producer, is the second highest recipient of federal fiscal transfers after Akwa Ibom , as well as the second highest generator of internal revenues after Lagos , it is widely believed to be a main source of PDP funding. The federal government shares revenue, much of it from oil production, with the 36 states according to a complicated formula.
Hide Footnote The PDP will go to any lengths to retain control, and the APC will spare no effort to capture the state, so as to deny its chief adversary this vital revenue stream, at least for the next four years. Hide Footnote. Until early December, the gubernatorial contest in the state seemed headed for a straight fight between Wike and Cole. A third threat stems from armed gangs and cults. Hide Footnote As in previous elections, many of them are offering their services to politicians to intimidate opponents and rig the polls.
Hide Footnote They could contribute significantly to election violence, particularly in remote riverine villages with little or no law enforcement — or where the overstretched federal police fear to tread. The group appears similar to those in several other states, including Lagos and Kogi. Civil society organisations have also expressed concerns over heavy security deployments during the gubernatorial elections in the two states.
He also said the state government would continue training the recruits. Hide Footnote Some locals worry that the Neighbourhood Safety Corps members may clash with soldiers around the polls. There have already been notable incidents of election-related violence. In August , INEC had to suspend indefinitely a by-election in the state capital, Port Harcourt, following widespread disruption by thugs.
Hide Footnote On 14 November, two people were killed and many wounded as about 25 gunmen attacked a PDP-organised rally in Ipo meant to educate voters about the need to collect their Permanent Voter Cards. The politicians escaped unhurt. Charges and counter-charges of parties acquiring guns raise the spectre of more violence. Hide Footnote These charges are yet to be proven, but all signs point to greater danger of violence as the Rivers state campaign heats up.
Akwa Ibom state, also located in the oil-producing Niger Delta, has been a PDP-governed state since the return to civilian rule in Hide Footnote Akwa Ibom also has a history of election-related violence, including deadly clashes between supporters of opposing parties and assassinations of candidates. Akwa Ibom state has a growing culture of violence.
In the second quarter of , 46 people were killed in communal conflict, violent criminality, gang and cult clash and other forms of violence. Hide Footnote Risks around the elections arise from both national and local politics.
Chris Grant is the Director. Has links to Ethiopian sites, esp. Formerly the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission. He stated this in a chat with…. Halltk September 5, reply. Melville J. For instance, on 29 November, the Civil Society Joint Action Committee, a coalition of civil society groups, warned of likely disturbances in twenty states.
First, the stakes are high. It receives the most federal money of any state, and it is widely believed to be a pillar of PDP finances. A second factor is partisan rancour in the state, aggravated by the split between PDP Governor Udom Emmanuel and his predecessor Godswill Akpabio, as well as the struggle for control of the state House of Assembly. Hide Footnote Soon after he assumed office, however, their relationship began to sour. He retains that post while running for governor.
Ituen sought an injunction from a federal high court in the state capital, Uyo, but it rejected his request and instead upheld a countersuit filed by House Speaker Onofiok Luke. That action invited a police siege of the House, ostensibly to prevent factional clashes. Two days after police lifted the siege, as directed by the federal Senate, the five defectors met again, allegedly trying to impeach Governor Emmanuel, who was backed by the majority PDP lawmakers.
The five, along with some of their supporters, were battered and dispersed by a band of security personnel and thugs, led by the governor himself. The PDP alleges that the APC orchestrated the crisis, deliberately stoking violence to provide the federal government with justification for declaring a state of emergency. This in turn would warrant postponing the vote to a later date, when the ruling party would deploy a large number of troops to intimidate voters and rig the ballot.
Kaduna state has a long history of lethal ethnic tensions. It was the state hardest hit by the post-election violence, accounting for about of the over people killed across twelve states.
Violent incidents in Kaduna — pitting ethnic rivals against one another, Christians against Muslims, herders against farmers, and bandits against community vigilantes — have killed more than a hundred since the beginning of Some of the more notable incidents are as follows: on 5 May, at least 71 people were killed in an attack on Gwaska village in Birnin-Gwari local government area. In October, at least 77 people died in ethnic and religious confrontations in different parts of the state.
Hide Footnote Tensions generated by these incidents are running high and could turn ugly around the elections. Local politics add to the risk. The current deputy governor, Barnabas Bala, is running for the senate. Hide Footnote This choice is a departure from long-running tradition whereby governors choose their deputies from the other main religious group.
It is also controversial because Balarabe hails from southern Kaduna, a part of the state that is predominantly Christian, and where many view his action as a deliberate affront to Christians. But critics, mostly but not exclusively Christians, view this choice of a Muslim-Muslim ticket as insensitive, especially since religious tensions are already high.