Omiete Blessing
Stakeholders have emphasised the need for credible and violent free elections in Nigeria, especially Rivers State.
The stakeholders made the submissions at a one-day engagement and town hall meeting to reflect on the 2023 general elections and the recently conducted local government elections in Rivers State.
The meeting which was organised by SOS Children’s Villages in Nigeria in Port Harcourt, had participants drawn from civil society organisations, religious bodies, security agencies, traditional institutions, clergy, others.
Amongst other identified triggers of electoral malpractice noted by the stakeholders at the meeting, include; inadequate voter education, lack of trust in the electoral process, and marginalization of certain groups, including Persons with Disabilities (PWDs), women, and youths.
They emphasised strategies such as enhanced voter education programs, enforcing the provisions of the 2022 Electoral Act, and ensuring stricter adherence to INEC guidelines to promote transparency and accountability, as key to addressing electoral issues in Nigeria.
In his submissions, Rev Edmund Chukwuemeka, emphasised the need for citizens to rise up and resist ballot snatching and electoral fraud in Nigeria.
He said: “What gives credibility to every leadership is followership, more or less when it is elected. If the people don’t vote you, you don’t have legitimacy. What we have presently is people who have hijacked power but they are not wearing army uniforms.
“From the days of military dictatorship we’ve built civilian dictatorship, thugs. What we have today are people who masquerade as Democrats. Our leadership presently as it is constituted is skewed.
So, Nigerians must resist. You don’t pray for change, you take action for change. We must begin to galvanise the people. We must move from the people being given stipends to the people being conscious that these stipends are useless.”
On her part, Executive Director, Arise for Gender and Livelihoods Initiative (ALIVE), Debbie Effiong, decried that politics of selection and imposition of candidates was negatively impacting on the Nigerian masses.
She expressed hope that with continued engagement, the democratic system in Nigeria will change.
Earlier, the Consortium Manager and Team Lead of SOS Children’s Village Nigeria, David Gabriel, explained that the essence of the program is to review the different elections that has held in Rivers State starting from the 2023 general elections and the recently held local government elections and proffer solutions to the identified gaps and challenges.
He also explained that SOS Children’s Villages in Nigeria, in a consortium with other partners and through funding from the European Union, has been actively engaging in the project titled “Towards a Peaceful Non-Violent Election in Nigeria.”
He noted that though there were some pockets of violence, but after the elections Rivers State is still standing as a result of engagement on different stakeholders by the body.