Presidential election: Nigeria sitting on gunpower – Fani-Kayode warns
INEC
Femi Fani-Kayode,
former Aviation Minister, has warned that Nigeria is sitting on a keg of gun
powder that could trigger and ignite a monumental “cataclysmic explosion, the
likes of which have never been seen”.
He said this in
reaction to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, claim that
they never used a server during the 2019 presidential election.
INEC had told the
Presidential Election Petition Tribunal that its officials never transmitted
election results from their polling units electronically during the just
concluded presidential election.
However,
Fani-Kayode urged the electoral commission to stop playing with the future of
Nigerians.
In a series of
tweets, Fani-Kayode wrote: “You said you had a server and told us how much you
spent on it. You complained that others had illegally gained access to it and
that they ought to be arrested. Yet when the matter got to court, you changed
the story and said you have no server. What type of strange abracadabra is
this?
“Please stop
playing Russian roullete with the future of our country. People’s eyes are open
and we are sitting on a keg of gunpowder right now. If care is not taken you
will pull the trigger and ignite a monumental and cataclysmic explosion the
likes of which have never been seen.”
The Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it does not have the server
where the PDP claim results of the presidential election were uploaded.
The electoral
commission is reacting to the request of Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate
of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who had asked the tribunal to compel INEC
to allow them inspect smart card readers and the server.
The opposition
party and its candidate are challenging the declaration of President Buhari as
winner of the presidential election that held in February. At the tribunal on
Thursday, Yunus Usman, counsel to INEC, said the party was asking something
they did not have.
“They are asking us
to bring something we do not have,” the lawyer said. Usman asked the tribunal
to strike out the application. Also, counsels of the All Progressives Congress
(APC) and Buhari asked the tribunal to strike out the application of the PDP.
They argued that
they could not prove the existence of a server. The electoral commission
said Buhari polled 15,191,847 votes to defeat the former vice-president who
secured 11, 262,978. But Atiku in his application claimed that he polled
18,356,732 votes while Buhari secured 16,741,430, citing INEC’s server.
Buhari vs Atiku: Human Rights Watch releases damning report on
Nigeria’s election, makes revelations
The Nigerian
elections in 2019 that brought President Muhammadu Buhari back into office for
a second term were marred by political violence, some of it by soldiers and
police officers, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Monday.
Buhari defeated
Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the keenly-contested
poll.
HRW called on
Buhari to take concrete steps to address the widespread political violence and
ensure accountability for human rights abuses by soldiers and police as he
begins his second term.
The report on the
election released on the HRW website on Monday noted that the election period
included persistent attacks by factions of Boko Haram terrorist group in the
northeast; increased communal violence between nomadic herdsmen and farmers
spreading southward from north-central states; and a dramatic uptick in
banditry, kidnapping, and killings in the northwestern states of Kaduna,
Katsina, and Zamfara. It maintained that security forces have failed to respond
effectively to threats to people’s lives and security.
Human Rights Watch
said it interviewed 32 people; including voters, journalists, election
observers, activists, and Independent National Electoral Commission officials
in Rivers and Kano states, and documented 11 deaths specifically related to
violent interference in the election process during the February 23
presidential election and subsequent state elections.
It added: “The
national and state elections in February, March, and April 2019 contributed to
the general insecurity across the country. The politically related violence
reported in many states was in contrast to the relatively peaceful 2015
elections that brought Buhari into his first term in office. According to a
report by SBM Intelligence, which monitors sociopolitical and economic
developments in Nigeria, 626 people were killed during the 2019 election cycle,
starting with campaigns in 2018.
“Kano state, in
northwestern Nigeria, has the highest number of registered voters in the
country. Rivers state, in the Niger Delta, receives the largest share of
crude-oil-based national revenue, representing significant electoral value to
any political party. The history of elections in both states is replete with
violence by state security agencies and criminal elements.
“Human Rights Watch
focused its research on both states in view of projections and reports of
violence during the 2019 elections. Despite police claims of increased security
measures to ensure peaceful voting, there seems to have been little or no
police response to reports of threats and acts of violence by hired political
thugs and soldiers against voters and election officials, Human Rights Watch
found.
“Voters and
election officials said that policemen either fled or stood idly by, fueling
allegations of complicity, as perpetrators stole election materials, disrupted
voting, and harassed voters. Witnesses said that the police also shot live
rounds of ammunition and used teargas to disperse people protesting voting
disruptions.
“Witnesses said
that after a soldier was killed in the town of Abonnema, in Rivers state, on
election day, soldiers shot at residents, killing an unknown number of people.
They also carried out sweeping arrests and arbitrarily detained several
people.”
“The soldiers were
on a rampage, shooting at anyone around,” said a 37-year-old man who witnessed
the episode. “As I made my way to flee, I saw people dive into the river, many
with gunshot wounds. The next day I saw three dead bodies riddled with bullets
floating in the water… I heard many more bodies were later recovered from that
river.”
HRW noted that
“Banditry and the recurring cycles of deadly violence between herdsmen and
farmers appear to have taken the lives of thousands. According to civil society
reports, over 3,641 people have died from deadly clashes between herdsmen and
farmers since 2015 and at least 262 people have been killed by bandits since
the beginning of 2019 in Zamfara State alone. The government deployed 1,000
military troops to the state in response, but few of those responsible for the
violence have been arrested or held to account.
“The northeast
conflict with Boko Haram and its splinter groups also remains one of Buhari’s
pressing challenges. Although Boko Haram’s territorial control has shrunk to
small pockets of villages around Lake Chad as a result of sustained government
military action since 2015, the group continues to carry out attacks against
civilian and military targets in the region and in neighboring Niger, Cameroon,
and Chad.
“In recent months,
renewed fighting between Nigerian government forces and a faction of Boko
Haram, known as Islamic State of West Africa Province (ISWAP), has led to
secondary displacement of civilians.
“Security forces
have been implicated in serious abuses, including arbitrary arrests, prolonged
detention without trial, torture, extrajudicial killings, rape and sexual
violence against women and girls in camps for displaced people. According to
the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA),
more than 27,000 civilians have died and about 1.8 million people have been
displaced since the beginning of the conflict in 2009.
“Authorities have
also failed to address impunity for killings by security forces elsewhere in
the country. The authorities have yet to publish the report of the Presidential
Judicial Panel set up in August 2017 to investigate the military’s compliance
with human rights obligations, allegations of war crimes, and other abuses by
the military.
“Nigerian voters
have entrusted Buhari with another opportunity to address the nation’s serious
human rights problems, including political violence,” Ewang said. “He should
start by reforming the security forces to ensure strict compliance with human
rights standards, and prompt investigation and prosecution of those credibly
implicated in abuses.”
On the 2019
election violence, HRW said: “Nigeria’s elections have historically been
fraught with controversy, violence, and other abuses, with the 2015 elections,
widely believed to have been largely free of violence, bucking this trend.
There were reports of voter intimidation and violence around the 2019 elections
at both the federal and state levels, including by armed men hired by candidates
and political parties and by security forces, including the national police.
“Bauchi, Benue,
Kano, Sokoto, Plateau, and Rivers states were particularly affected by violence
during the March 9 gubernatorial elections. The Independent National Electoral
Commission canceled elections in places where the elections were disrupted and
held supplementary elections later. Kano state had supplementary elections on
March 23, and Rivers state on April 13.
“Kano and Rivers
states were probably the worst hit of the six states. They were identified by
both local and international analysts ahead of the elections as holding great
potential for electoral violence. Both are major political strongholds for the
two leading political parties, Buhari’s ruling All Progressives Congress (APC)
and the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP). Abdullahi Ganduje of the
APC won the 2019 election in Kano, and Nyesom Wike of the PDP won in Rivers
state.”
Peter Obi, Nuhu Ribadu, others in presidential election tribunal as
hearing begins
The running mate to
the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Peter Obi is
currently present at the hearing session of the petition filed before
presidential election tribunal against the declaration of President Muhammadu
Buhari as the winner of the 2019 presidential election.
It would be
recalled that Obi ran a joint ticket with the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku
Abubakar in the 2019 presidential election.
Also present in the
court is a former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission
(EFCC), Nuhu Ribadu, and a commissioner at the Independent National Electoral
Commission (INEC)
Wole Olanipekun
while moving an objection on the preliminary application filed by President
Buhari on his qualification said the application have been filed and served to
all parties involved in the matter.
But drama ensued
after a counsel who identified himself as Poland standing in for the Hope
Democratic Party announced his appearance over which attracted a vehement
objection to his claim.
However, President
of the Tribunal, Mohammed Lawal Garba further urged all parties involved to
privately sort out the issues of representation.
Garba also
announced that all preliminary applications pending before the court would be
heard on June 13.
Meanwhile, the
tribunal has just gone into the preliminary part of the substantive matter.
