Different Ways to Limit Electoral Violence in Nigeria 2020

Electoral violence has become an emerging problem of democratizing societies in the past two decades. how to curb electoral violence and conflicts in Nigeria?. The causes and preventive measures to be carried out by the youths and leader governing the states and country. Please make sure you drop your comments below and share with friends too via our social share buttons below.

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From the first major election in Nigeria which ushered in the Independence of the country in 1960 to the last 2011 election, which stabilized the current president, there always has existed contending and dissenting voices that greeted each election. 

There is no election that has held in Nigeria that was greeted with a general acceptability. The closest we got would have been the June 12, 1993 election, which Moshood Abiola won but was annulled.  The onus of this write-up is why our elections are fraught with violence and what should be done to curb the carnage, mayhem and sadistic demonstrations that usually accompany the elections?

Electoral violence starts before the election. Once campaigns are on, the politics is heated and claims and counter-claims continue to fly in the air. It is unfortunately that most of our politicians resort to complain of calumny. Rather than talk on what they intend to do and why the electorate should vote for them, they talk about the opposing parties and their candidates. They take solace in character assassination and creating artificial pandemonium.

The Nigeria electorate, been highly gullible are easily given to petty talks, rice politics, soap and tomatoes campaigns, which lead to the sales of birth right or  'vote right' as the case may apply. One can hardly discuss Nigeria's election without reference to rigging for obvious reasons. Once a candidate does not win in an election in Nigeria, it is due to rigging. Rigging has become notoriously and exclusively associated with electoral fraud.
Gerrymandering can give room to rigging. 

Honestly; rigging in Nigeria has never been accepted by anyone. Like every bad habit, everybody or rather every political party washes his hands off it; denies it while shouting on top of the roof accusing others off the same vice.

Virtually every election in this country has been marked by acrimony among various political parties, each accusing the other of stealing its supporters' votes. The attendant result of election malpractices in most cases has been violence. It needs no elaboration to state that many lives has been lost and property damage as a result of this electoral tragedy 'Operation We ti e' in the old Western Region leading to the state of emergency there, mayhem in the west again in 1979; tense atmosphere leading to the coup of 1983, the doom prophecy and exodus of southerners in the North that trailed the June 12 election, the disagreement of the opposition parties to the victory of Olusegun Obasanjo in the first and second term; the wolf cry and purported rigging that characterized the emergence of Musa Shehu Yar'adua and recently, the many deaths that were witnessed in the North during the election of the current president in the first term, are all testimonies to the sacrilegious waste of life that follows our elections. Can we forget so soon, our Corps members who were cut down in their Prime in the North for no just cause but for heeding a call to serve their motherland, as officials in the general election of 2011? No, we cannot. And this must stop. For us to curb electoral violence in Nigeria, many things need to be ameliorated. 

Political education is a necessity for the political class. The parochial interests of our politicians clearly do not allow them to lead the electorate in the right road. The populace is largely groping in abject poverty and their gullibility is more compromised in the rice, tomato, maggi, groundnut oil and probably few naira notes that are traded for their votes. The citizenry must know why they vote.
Franchise is not just about voting but knowing why you are voting.

The ethics of politics is non-existent in Nigeria. There should be a code of conduct for our politicians which must be strictly adhered to. Foul language during campaign derogatory remarks against opponents, personal vendetta, libelious publications, blackmail and other avenues for running down personal characters rather than obvious tangible projects, that border on improving the impoverished lives of the masses should be curtailed.

If the government can provide for her citizen as entrenched in the constitution, there will be no political thugs to carry out political or electoral violence. Montesquieu in 'du contrat sociale' (The social contract) agreed that the art of governance is a contract between the ruler and the ruled.

The Ruler is under a bond to fulfill his own part of the contract after his election. Therefore, if we have the good things of life which are affordable, people will not scramble for crumbs that fall from the table of those sharing the 'National Cake'.

The politicians that involve in electoral violence used mostly youths that are jobless. Their own children are far away outside the Country while they engage other children in horrendous display of violence. Once our youths can be empowered and are also politically enlightened, then we can sing "Harambe'.