Prof. Sheriff Ibrahim, Department of Political Science and International Relations, University of Abuja, has stressed the need to quickly abate electoral violence in the country.
He made the call at a symposium on election security organised by the Centre for strategic research and studies, National Defence College in collaboration with African Peace Support Trainers Association.
Ibrahim said that electoral violence had caused colossal loss and damage to life and property, as well as the nation’s economy, and hence should be abated.
He said that electoral violence had taken its toll on all stakeholders, including Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), officials and property, security agents, media and the electorate.
He noted that since the 2019 general elections, the electoral body had recorded 50 attacks in 15 states of the federation, while property worth billions of naira had been destroyed with loss of lives at different stages.
According to him, “the record shows that 100 persons were killed in election-related violence in 2003, 300 in 2007, 800 in 2011.
“In all, the electoral body recorded nine attacks in 2019, 21 incidents in 2020 and over 12 as of May 2021. It also lost 9,836 smart card readers, 345 ballot boxes, and 135 voting cubicles, among other assets,” he said.
According to him, on Feb. 12, 2019, shortly before the general elections, two containers loaded with 4,695 smart card readers were destroyed along with other sensitive materials in a mysterious fire at the Anambra State headquarters of INEC.
“The commission estimated in its budget that each card reader cost N167,063 while each memory card cost N6,000.
“It was estimated that based on INEC’s budget for such sensitive materials, the loss incurred was about N847million, which also included batteries and Secure Access Module cards,” he said.
According to him, a report in 2019 showed that 352 cases of attacks against journalists were recorded between 1985 and 2019.
He also noted cyber attacks on the INEC portal which may affect the results of the election.
According to him, security agents are also targets before, during and after elections, as a report indicates that within the Q4 of 2022 and Q3 of 2021, 322 police officers and 642 soldiers have been killed. CONTINUE READING………………………….
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