Election violence: Wave of litigations likely

The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) says with the scale of violence seen in Saturday’s governorship and state assembly elections across Nigeria, a wave of post-election litigations is likely.

This was disclosed at the CDD Election Analysis Centre (EAC) post-election press conference in Abuja yesterday.

It said this could result in courts determining the legality of the election mandates secured.

“This has the added effect of seeing courts have a role in determining ‘elected’ officials, further undermining voters’ sense that their vote is valued and has an impact on the outcome of an election process,” it said.

NNPP wins Kano; APC in Kaduna, Niger, Benue, Nasarawa, Borno, Ebonyi, C/River

5 things to know about Lawal, winner of Zamfara election

The CDD said the elections were characterised by vote-buying, violence and intimidation.

Chairman, CDD-EAC, Prof. Adele Jinadu and Director, Idayat Hassan, said the improved conduct of the governorship and state assembly elections by the Independent National Electoral Commission had been undermined by violence, vote-buying, online and offline intimidation of voters, disinformation and decreased citizens’ trust in INEC. 

The CDD said its data showed violence occurred in 10.8 percent of polling units observed with voter suppression and intimidation, destruction or theft of election materials predominantly by political party agents and politically aligned thugs recorded across the six geopolitical zones.

“10.8 percent of observed PUs recorded violence and/or fighting this was most pronounced in the northwest (19.9 percent) and south-south (11.6 percent) geopolitical zones with Bayelsa and Zamfara the two states with the most incidents recorded by our observers,” it said.

It listed those behind the violence as non-state actors, political thugs and political party agents whose objective was to disrupt the election processes.