violence
By Diana Omueza
Abuja, Dec. 20, 2018 (NAN) A don, Dr Freedom Onuoha, has advised security agencies to scale up operations against hard drugs and banned substances through a multi-agency exercise to identify “the hot spots of drug use”.
Onuoha, who teaches Political Science at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, also advised the security outfits to interdict the networks, routes and actors that sustained drug and substance abuse in each state of the federation.
He gave the advice at the dissemination of research findings from security threats assessment towards the 2019 general elections in Nigeria, a workshop organised by Cleen Foundation on Thursday in Abuja.
The CLEEN Foundation is a Non-governmental Organisation (NGO) promoting public safety, security and accessible justice through the strategies of empirical research, legislative advocacy, demonstration programmes and publications, in partnership with government, civil society and the private sector.
The Professor of political science pointed out that scaling up interdiction operations against hard drugs and other banned substances could help to curb electoral violence in the 2019 general elections.
Onuoha, while presenting the Security Threats Assessment (STA) findings, said that majority of the survey respondents held the view that widespread availability and use of hard drugs could precipitate electoral violence in the states.
‘’The view that widespread availability and use of hard drugs can bring about electoral violence was shared by residents in both rural and urban areas, and held mostly by people of 18 -39 years of age.
‘’The survey indicates that low sense of safety among members of the public essentially due to the inability of the security agents to tackle banditry, kidnapping, and assassination tops the list of factors that could lead to electoral violence, followed by partiality of security agents,’’ he said.
Onuoha noted also that exclusion of certain groups on the basis of age, gender and religious identity could also lead to electoral violence in the 2019 general elections.
He said that the respondents to the survey believed that the exclusion of youth, minority groups and women could contribute to violence during any elections.
He said that going by the National average score of the survey, more likely to also cause electoral violence were problems associated with the distribution, location and adequacy of polling units and voting points.
Onuoha said also that more likely to precipitate electoral violence included where the media was involved in partisanship, favouritism, partiality, and failure of regulatory bodies to ensure adherence to established rules by the media.
He also advised on a collaboration with relevant agencies such as the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) and the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) in establishing framework for effective monitoring and response to the use of all media platforms.
On his part, Dr Benson Olugbuo, Executive Director, Cleen Foundation, said that the Nationwide Survey was embarked upon between October and December 2018 to assess electoral risk factors in Nigeria ahead of the forthcoming general elections.
He noted that it was with a view to identifying early warning signals that could assist relevant stakeholders, especially the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), security agencies and civil society organisations (CSOs) to deploy appropriate responses.
‘’The specific objectives of the assessment were to examine real and potential election security threats across the 36 states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory.
‘’To identify actors and actions that could constitute threats to peaceful election in Nigeria and proffer recommendations to mitigate identified threats or potential risk factors’’, he said.
He said that vote buying was the foremost of the fourteen risk factors that could generate tension or electoral violence as revealed by the survey, and that citizen’s disaffection with government either on policy grounds or economic considerations could cause electoral violence with higher percentages.
Olugbuo suggested that the government, political parties, media, and civil society organisations must escalate public enlightenment and sensitisation programmes on the dangers of vote buying.
He advised INEC to be more involved in monitoring internal party processes and primaries with enhanced capacity to impose appropriate sanctions on erring parties.
‘’INEC should prioritise strategic communication to ensure that technical electoral hitches are not wrongly interpreted as deliberate attempts to favour a particular party or candidates during elections,’’ Olugbuo said. (NAN)
DOM/AMY
Edited by Abdullahi Yusuf