By Perpetua Onuegbu
Director-General, Institute for Police and Security Policy Research, Dr Charles Omoje, has called for attitudinal change among Nigerians rather than a review of the country’s Electoral Act.
Omoje stated this during a public presentation of Nigeria Election Violence Report for the 2024 Edo and Ondo governorship elections by Kimpact Development Initiative (KDI) on Friday in Abuja.
The director-general, in his keynote address, titled: “Promoting Electoral Security, Credibility and Public Trust”, said unless there was an attitudinal change among Nigerians, the country would continue to record violence during elections.
“There’s need for massive reorientation of Nigerians. Nigerians can change their behaviours if there are consequences.
“If we feel the only way to prove our electoral process is to constantly tamper with the electoral act, constantly bring up technicalities, then we’ll never have a credible election in this country.
“What needs to change is not a constant change of electoral process and system, but a reorientation of Nigerians to think differently about our elections.
“If we have countries voting with pencil and paper and their elections are credible, I think that with what INEC has put in place, renewed- minded Nigerians can make it work, for the sake of our posterity,” he said.
Omoje also cited what he called inconsistencies in judicial rulings as another issue that must be addressed.
He said that Nigeria must differentiate between principles of election security management and election day security.
According to him, election day security is a critical aspect of the democratic government, as it ensures that electoral processes are free, fair and credible.
“While both election security management and election day security management focus on safeguarding elections, they differ in scope, timing and objectives,” he said.
Also speaking, the KDI Executive Director, Bukola Idowu, called for urgent attention to pre-election and post-election violence in Nigeria.
Idowu said that focusing only on election day security would not reflect the true state of electoral integrity in the country.
While stressing the need for a broader approach to election security, he said: “Our report today shows that while election day was peaceful, the entire election process—before and after—was not.
“We recorded incidents of violence, including the killing of a policeman in Edo State before the election and another person in Ondo’s Akoko area.
“The report highlights that heavy security deployment on election day often creates a false sense of peace, as the most critical threats occur in the lead-up to the polls.
“Election security is a process. What happens a month before an election is crucial to the outcome on election day,” Idowu said.
The Chairman, House of Representative Committee on Electoral Reform, Hon. Adebayo Balogun, said that lawmakers were working on the Electoral Offences Tribunal Commission Bill.
Once passed, he said that the bill would remove the responsibility of handling electoral offences from INEC and establish a commission that would address malpractices and violence.
According to him, the bill, which is set for public hearing soon, is expected to be passed into law by end of July.
“We need professionals in security and election management to handle electoral offences. This reform will create a level-playing field and ensure free, fair and credible elections in Nigeria,” he said.
Balogun called on Nigerians to take interest and participate in the public hearing that would form the basis for the bill.
On his part, a community leader, Chief Sola Adegbonmire, said that electoral violence would be a thing of the past if people were held responsible for violating the laws.
Adegbonmire, who is the Asae of Akure kingdom and Chairman, State Peace Mediation Working Committee, said that a system of mitigating election violence had been institutionalised in his community.
“When people realise that there are consequences for their actions, they will have a rethink. But when there is no penalty for actions, people will misbehave. So people must be held responsible for their actions.
In his remarks, an Islamic scholar, Alhaji Abdulhakeem Yayi-Akorede, said most election violence were engineered by politicians whose main interest was to acquire power for material gains.
“When politicians say they want to serve, they actually want to acquire material gains and if anything threatens this purpose, they resort to violence,” he said.
Yayi-Akorede who is also the Vice-Chairman, Edo State Peace and Mediation Working Committee, said politicians were not living up to expectations, urging them, therefore, to change their mindset, as ‘election is not a do or die’.
He commended KDI and other CSOs for their intervention in monitoring the elections, which resulted in a casualty-free election in Edo for the first time in the history of the state. (NAN)