Two United States-based Democratic institutions – the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and International Republican Institute (IRI) – have expressed concern about the activities of separatist groups and informal security outfits in the South-east and South-west of Nigeria, warning that they could be recipes for election violence in 2023.
An international delegation of the NDI and the IRI raised the alarm in Abuja on Friday, December 9, while presenting its second joint pre-election assessment statement on Nigeria’s approaching 2023 elections, This Day reported.
According to them, while the secessionist agitation by Indigenous People of Biafra might affect voter turnout because of apathy, the proliferation of regional security elements, including Amotekun in the South-west and Ebubeagu in the South-east would increase opportunities for election violence, The Punch reported also.
They observed that a major concern affecting most parts of Nigeria is insecurity driven by extremist and sectarian violence, banditry, the rise of separatist elements, and the proliferation of informal security forces.
The institutes warned:
“If there were to be a widespread malfunction of the BVAS machines as occurred with the smart card readers in 2015, it could undermine the perceived legitimacy of the elections and spark violence.”
While urging INEC to clarify how underage voters, double registrations and any other criteria that would result in a voter being removed from the voter roll will be handled, they called on the commission to conduct national stress tests of the BVAS machines and the IReV system to ensure they are prepared to function effectively on election day across more than 176,000 polling units.
They said, “INEC should complete surveys of internally displaced persons camps in all states, and provide clear guidelines on the process by which IDPs, including those not living in IDP camps, will vote in the election.
“Security forces should proactively identify wards at high risk of strategic election violence and focus their resources on these areas.”
The assessment conducted from December 4 to 9, 2022 was built on the first assessment mission which visited Nigeria in July 2022.
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