Violence merchants

Last week’s outbreak of violence at the All Progressives Congress (APC) campaign event in Lagos State showed just how prone to rouge aggression the electoral environment could be.

To briefly recap: a firefight erupted at Sky Power Ground, Ikeja, venue of the party’s governorship campaign flag-off on Tuesday when hoodlums believed to be supporters of factional leaders of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) stormed the rally with guns, daggers, machetes and the like in a supremacy battle that claimed some lives and left others injured.

It was ironically an event where, as far as appearances go, the party itself staged a unity front. Lagos State Governor Akinwumi Ambode, who had late last year failed to secure support for his second term bid, was making a pitch for the preferred flagbearer, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, and other candidates of the party when an exchange of gunshots by the hoodlums heralded a free-for-all that truncated proceedings at the event and sent attendees stampeding for safety.

Reports cited at least two fatalities resulting, though the police confirmed one on the heels of the incident. Stray shots bruised no fewer than three journalists, including The Nation’s Group Political Editor, Emmanuel Oladesu. One of the transport union’s factional leaders was himself stabbed in the melee and rushed off to hospital for medical attention. Security operatives had a hectic time reining in the pandemonium, in which opportunistic criminal elements such as pickpockets dispossessed people of their phones, money and other valuables.

The police stated that the campaign event violence stemmed from internal dynamics of the transport union and not from party politics. “The preliminary investigation we carried out revealed that it is just their (transport workers’) internal union crisis. I heard that their state chairman would leave soon and there are some players who want to succeed him. But the inauguration of a governorship candidate’s campaign is not a good platform for them to begin their fight. We will not tolerate it,” Lagos State Police Commissioner Imohimi Edgal was reported saying.

The party itself disowned the violence and apologised to Lagos residents shortly after the incident. State chairman, Mr. Tunde Balogun, said: “We are shocked and very sorry for what happened today. It was unexpected, and we promise it will not repeat itself. The warring groups only used the event to settle scores.” Speaking to similar effect, the state secretary, Mr. Joe Igbokwe, said: “We regret that towards the end of the rally, two factions of the NURTW engaged in a brawl that led to some people sustaining injuries. We deeply regret this ugly and unacceptable behaviour, with a firm promise that such an incident will not repeat itself in the course of our campaigns.”

‘If incidents of electoral violence in our clime were devoid of instigation by partisan players, we would be on our jolly way to taming the monster’

With no evidence to the contrary, we must take the police’s word and that of the party that the violence was rouge – the handiwork of rabid unionists and nothing to do with the politics of the party on whose platform it was enacted. (Ignore the voodoo claim by Peoples Democratic Party chieftain, Femi Fani-Kayode, on his Facebook page that it was “some kind of ritual and blood sacrifice” by the APC to kick-start its campaign in Lagos.) Violence of any kind is by all means reprehensible; but it is quite helpful that party actors, going by afore-cited pronouncements, did not motivate, encourage or abet the Lagos incident, and the party to boot promised to prevent a reoccurrence. If incidents of electoral violence in our clime were devoid of instigation by partisan players, we would be on our jolly way to taming the monster.

Bear in mind that the bane of our electoral system in this country has always been the factor of hoodlums who hazard the safety of other players in the electoral milieu – like voters in polling precincts during elections, or party supporters at campaign rallies as was the case in Lagos last week. It is worse that political actors are for much of the time complicit. In many instances, hoodlums are mere agents of partisan sponsors aiming to compromise the integrity of the electoral process. It is political actors who enlist and kit thugs to assault their rivals and those rivals’ followers, in the desperation to gain whatever advantage. It is also political actors who commission hoodlums to disrupt voting and snatch ballot boxes on Election Day, in the course of which some voters get hurt.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) highlighted the effect of this factor recently in underscoring the joint responsibility of stakeholders in the electoral project to ensure credible elections. In an interview with journalists, INEC National Commissioner, Barr. Festus Okoye, affirmed the readiness of the electoral body for the impending 2019 general election, but he stressed that delivering credible poll is a multi-stakeholder venture.

“All critical stakeholders in the electoral process must work symbiotically in order to deliver credible elections. If INEC is ready to deploy and the environment is not conducive for deployment, then we cannot deploy…unless the critical institutions that have been mandated to maintain law and order give an assurance that our materials and personnel will be safe…The political parties are also a key institution in the delivery of credible elections…If we assemble young people, members of the (National Youth Service Corps), and we want to deploy them but political parties go and hire thugs, give them machetes, arms and ammunition, and they create an atmosphere of confusion and fear, then there is no way we can deploy,” Okoye said, adding: “So our assurances to the Nigerian people is that we are ready to conduct credible elections, but the Nigerian people must also pay attention to the activities of the political parties, call them to order and insist that they play by the rules.”

The violence in Lagos last week is utterly condemnable, but you could say there was a redeeming feature, namely the seeming non-complicity of the political party. However, the incident also showed up the onus on political actors to effectively leash their supporters from going rouge with violence if the electoral environment is to be safeguarded against security breakdowns. That would seem to be the commitment the APC in Lagos is taking on with its promise to prevent a reoccurrence. But it is as well a commitment that all other partisans must earnestly sign up to for safety and good health of our political environment.

New helmsman in DRC

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) last week became the latest of African countries where opposition candidates emerged victorious over ruling party candidates through the ballot box. Felix Tshisekedi was on Thursday announced by DRC’s electoral commission, CENI, as surprise winner of the 30^th December presidential poll in which another opposition candidate, Martin Fayulu, closely ran up while the ruling party candidate, Emmanuel Shadary, placed a distant third.

But controversy trails that outcome, raising doubts that democracy has indeed triumphed in the central African nation. Fayulu dubbed the result “a true electoral coup,” and his objection found resonance in vote tallies by reputable observers that showed him as the winner. There is a strong suspicion that because Kabila’s handpicked candidate, Shadary, was shown by opinion polls before the election to be lagging behind, he struck a power-sharing deal with Tshisekedi that may have influenced the declared result.

If the Constitutional Court confirms Tshisekedi’s victory in the coming days, it will have to be seen if democracy truly triumphed in DRC or Kabila, who has been in power since 2001, got an extension by proxy.