The demons of democracy are up and running; rearing their ugly heads through muck-raking, mud-slinging and smear campaigns against their perceived political foes.
“But if these attacks continue to Ja “Since the 2019 general elections up till 2022, we have recorded 50 attacks in 15 states of the federation. The ones we recorded in 2022 are the ones we considered systematic and coordinated. They are targeted at derailing our commission from conducting free and credible elections. We are recovering and will recover.
One of such frictional factors, out to derail the current democratic process is arms proliferation in the hands of paid political thugs already unleashing mayhem on Independent National Electoral Commission facilities. As at May 30, 2021. it was reported that the attacks occurred in 14 states between February 2019 and May 2021. At least 41 offices of the electoral commission, INEC, were attacked across Nigeria by armed non-state actors.
Unknown to the masterminds behind the mayhem: “Violence itself is retrogressive, the politically violent are primitive.” So said NjauKihia. Good enough, that the INEC Chairman, has warned, and rightly so, that violence may mar the 2023 general elections and prevent presidential poll winners from emerging!
The next high hurdle placed on the path of INEC towards the conduct of the 2023 general elections is massive vote-buying. Both the Independent National Electoral Commission and the Northern Elders Forum have raised a timely alarm over the unpatriotic act by power-poaching politicians buying Permanent Voter Cards from registered voters with the obnoxious aim to harvest their Voter Identification Numbers .
That reminds one of the warnings given by the Deputy Editor of Women’s Day, Andra Chantim who stated that: “If we don’t vote, we are ignoring history and giving away the future.” The spate of violence however, clearly shows that Nigerian politicians have learnt little or nothing from the sad experiences of violent elections that have adversely affected African countries such as Uganda, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Congo.
They cited Zimbabwe and Belarus as useful examples. For instance, during dictator Robert Mugabe’s 30-year rule of Zimbabwe, his ZANU-PF party allowed opposition candidates to run for office – but regularly used violence to neutralize and intimidate the electoral opposition. Even after Mugabe’s ouster in a 2017 coup, the country’s new rulers continued this strategy.
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