Few hours to tomorrow’s the Saturday’s rescheduled Presidential and National Assembly elections, Cleen Foundation, a non- governmental organization, NGO has raised alarm over security threats in 12 States.
According to Cleen Foundation, these States; Borno, Benue, Gombe, Delta, Kogi, Ondo, Ebonyi, Kwara, Akwa Ibom, Kaduna, Zamfara and Kano have witnessed election related violence that led to the destruction of lives and property within one that elections were rescheduled.
Benson Olugbuo, Executive Director of Cleen Foundation who disclosed this Friday at a press conference in Abuja said the NGO field observers across the country have reported incidents of election related violence including politically motivated killings, insurgency, fighting among party supporters and thugs, destruction of property and vandalization of INEC offices/property.
Olugbuo stated that, the spate of violence witnessed since the election was rescheduled from the 16th of February, 2019 further validates earlier findings of Cleen Foundation Election Security Threat Assessment (STA) which identified political thugs as major actors that could perpetrate electoral violence in the 2019 General Elections.
“The security threat posed by these developments will likely cause voter apathy amongst the generality of Nigerian voters who may be worried about their safety when they go out to vote.
“Consequently, we use this medium to call on all stakeholders to uphold their duty towards peaceful conduct of the 2019 general elections. Nigerian citizens should avoid electoral infractions that will impact negatively on the conduct of the elections.
“We particularly call on security actors to refrain from unwarranted use of force and should promptly address any incident that is likely to cause electoral violence before, during and after the elections. For a country working to strengthen the relations between the populace and security actors, the use of unwarranted force may be counter-productive.
“CLEEN Foundation will continue its partnership with key stakeholders in observing the elections and particularly the conduct of security actors on election duty through our ESSC for the 2019 general elections. Updates from the ESSC can be followed through our hashtag #2019ElectionSecurity”, he stated.
James Kwen, Abuja
