On Wednesday, 30th January 2019 Transparency International (TI) expressed fears over the militarization of the forthcoming 2019 election by the Federal Government. The organization advised that the action should be dropped to enhance the credibility of the electoral process.
TI disclosed that the concerns were based largely on the roles played by various security personnel in the off-cycle elections held in 2018 and the desperation shown by some politicians to be elected by all means.
According to the Program Manager of Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, (intermediary of TI in Nigeria), Salahudeen Hashim and Executive Director, Musa Auwal Rafsanjani, who jointly raised these fears during the public presentation of a preliminary report and research on “Involvement of Nigerian Security Services in the electoral process: Guardian or threat to democracy.”
The two researchers stressed that the report would be transmitted to every stakeholder involved in the electoral process in Nigeria. According to them, after the election, the full report would also be presented while details of what happened after the election would be made public.
The report further reads, “The high policing of elections by a plethora of security agencies will not only make it impossible for members of the opposition to go out to vote, out of fear of intimidation but also for the general electorate not to exercise their franchise.
In the same vein, TI representatives opined that the militarization of elections may also engender psychological and structural violence on citizens. Overall, it will compromise their professional credibility and deepen partisanship within their ranks. The excessive spending on funding Security Services for electoral duty deprives the country of resources that could better be invested in providing infrastructure in the critical sectors such as health and education.
They emphasized that,the solution to the involvement of the Nigerian Armed forces and other Para-military/security services, beyond the Police, in electoral processes, is to be stopped it without further delay. Also, instances of pre-election tension do not always translate to ca risis on election day. For this reason, use of Para-military organizations and Security Services, beyond the Police, in the electoral process is unnecessary. According to them, elections should be treated as any ordinary exercise Nigerians engage with and efforts made to de-prioritize it above other civic activities. In principle, the responsibility of providing security and safety should be a daily priority that should not be given any undue attention during elections.
TI called on Government to ensure that our democratic process remains as it should be and institutions must function they way they should be and not allow anybody to push them around. Everybody will actually be put on the same page with what our findings actually revealed.
More so, the trend about the involvement of security agencies in elections is growing and increasingly worrisome. Between the time we started elections in 1965, the involvement of security agencies was largely not as much as this and that was because at that time, the people were a little bit civil and there was not much pressure to hold on to power.
Also, TI representatives calls for concern and that there is a need for the Government to be very neutral in terms of the role they play in the build-up to the election and the election itself. The report also shows how security agencies have also participated in snatching ballot boxes and of course supporting politician to engage in some kinds of unorthodox practices. This was partly what also informed this research.
The report concluded that, the trend is actually worrisome and its hoped that something will be done to arrest the situation before it becomes a little of more concern to the international community.