Bertrand Onuoha, the commissioner of police for Kogi State, has compared the off-season governorship elections that have taken place in Nigeria, especially in his state, to war zones and said that they had strayed greatly from the standards of a peaceful electoral process, News About Nigeria reports.
Speaking in public at a presentation on Nigeria’s Election Violence and Education Report of the 2023 governorship polls in the states of Bayelsa, Imo, and Kogi in Abuja, Onuoha expressed shock at the unusual level of hatred that stained the results of the poll on November 11, which saw Usman Ododo, the candidate for the All Progressives Congress, as the winner.
With 446,237 votes, Ododo defeated his closest rivals, Social Democratic Party candidate Murtala Ajaka and Peoples Democratic Party candidate Dino Melaye, by 259,052 and 46,362 votes, respectively.
Ajaka and Melaye, however, disagreed with the outcome, citing irregularities that marred the election.
“Conducting elections in Nigeria is war. Since the creation of Kogi State in 1991, elections in the state have always been like war. Since I was born, I have never seen the kind of bitterness that was brought into electioneering in the state towards the November 11, 2023 governorship election.
“A lot of things need to be done to co-opt people who are ready to serve their fatherland, not those who take politics as business or as a career.
“If not for the series of meetings we have held with stakeholders, believe you me, if not what we have done (such as) pre-election issues, meetings with stakeholders, I don’t think even an election would have held in that state.
“When you look at the political parties in Nigeria, there is nothing like internal democracy. That is why most of the pre-election violence cropped up from a lack of internal democracy, intra-party activities, where you will see bitterness amongst the same family of the same political party,” he said.
The Executive Director of Kimpact Development Initiative, Bukola Idowu, stated that the organisation started tracking and monitoring the election campaigns in Kogi, Imo, and Bayelsa six months prior.
“We have been tracking and monitoring the three states that had off-cycle elections in 2023 such as Kogi, Imo, and Bayelsa. We started tracking the environment, actors, and possible issues of electoral violence six months before the elections.
“We found out that there are dynamics in each of the three states. We have the politics of identity that fuelled violence in Kogi, cultism that fuelled violence in Bayelsa, and in Imo, you have intimidation, segregation, and secessionist agitation in that place.”
In her recommendations, Idowu urged the federal government and law enforcement agencies to prosecute electoral offenders rather than make mere arrests.
