By Linus Aleke, Abuja
Global Rights, a civil society organization, operating in Nigeria, has said that the problem of Nigeria is not corruption as espoused in several quarters but impunity, amongst the political class.
Executive Director of Global Rights, Ms. Abiodun Baiyewu, said this during a webinar on national dialogue, on
demanding accountability for the 2023 general election atrocities.
She noted that elections in Nigeria has always been volatile from inception at independence till date.
Ms. Baiyewu, contended that the inability of the government to punish electoral offenders, is responsible for the continued violence and impunity at every election circle.
The executive director, identified Rivers and Lagos, as states with the worst case of electoral violence in the federation.
While recalling divisive and inciting comments attributed to the presidential spokesperson, Mr. Bayo Onanuga, which led to violence and loss of lives, Ms. Baiyewu, regretted that the presidential aide is still working the streets free after inciting violence.
Noting that love begins with a fight, the executive director concluded that “the accountability we seek must begin with us”.
The Executive Secretary, National Human Rights Commission, Mr. Anthony Okechukwu Ojukwu, SAN, applauded Global Rights for leading the way in documenting election atrocities in Nigeria.
Represented by Director Legal, Mr. Harry Ogwuche Obe, the ES promised to continue to partner with Global Rights to actualize the project objectives.
Earlier in a statement, Global Rights said that Nigeria’s electoral cycles have been fraught with violence, even more so since the nation’s return to democratic rule in 1999.
According to the statement, “Electoral violence in Nigeria is multidimensional and encompasses a wide range of actors including politicians and their supporters; the government; and sundry groups embedded in the nation’s larger context of insecurity. The 2023 general election was no different as hate speech and thuggery was deployed all over the country. Global Rights with the support of Ford Foundation initiated an intervention to ensure accountability for hate speech and related election atrocities in Nigeria as a deterrent to such behaviour. The aim was to catalyze effective accountability as a counterpoise against election-related atrocities. The intervention gave rise to the establishment of the Incident Centre for Election Atrocities (ICEA) in December 2022”.
This ICEA, the statement said, documented incidents of hate speech, malicious propagation of fake news, violence and other forms of elections-related atrocities from the commencement of the election campaigns until the week after the governorship and state-level elections.
“With the preliminary analysis of our findings showing a heightened deployment of ethnic profiling, hate, violence and voter suppression by desperate political actors and their supporters in the 2023 electioneering process in Nigeria, we then commissioned an independent consultant to engage in forensic analysis of the gathered evidence to determine if they are sufficient to make a case,” Global Rights concluded.
