Point One

French President Emmanuel Macron is fast becoming a customer of a peculiar form of protest under the democratic setting. He was again treated to an ambush smack in the face – physically speaking – by an apparent protester among a crowd of constituents with whom he was having in-contact chitchat at a location in France. The incident was said to have happened penultimate Sunday, 20th November, 2022. In a video footage that lately went viral on social media, Macron was hit in the face by a woman in an olive green t-shirt as he walked by in front of a crowd. The president’s security details moved swiftly in and tackled down the woman, while pulling Macron away. Expectedly, being a presidential outing, the whole incident played out before media cameras. Neither the identity nor motive of the female assaulter was clear as at the time of the incident. That wasn’t the first time the French president was being subjected to physical assault by an apparently angry constituent. In June 2021, a you...

They come in different shades, but to the same negative effect. They are merchants of electoral violence, and their ultimate objective is to obstruct free expression of the voters’ will through the ballot box. And they aren’t just enemies of free democratic expression, but also of the good of the Nigerian state. With the 2023 general election under 100 days away – the national elections into the Presidency and National Assembly chambers on 25th February, 2023 and the state elections into the governorships and houses of assembly on 11th March – they constitute a pressing danger the country must earnestly deal with. It was violence at its crudest wrought against the ballot box with the arson attacks, penultimate Thursday, on offices of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Ogun and Osun states. Arsonists lit into the commission’s Abeokuta South council area office in the Ogun capital at about 1:15am on 10th November and incinerated the premises and movable assets on sit...