An international delegation of two United States-based institutes have expressed concern over the activities of separatist groups and informal security outfits in the South-East and South-West regions, warning that they could be recipes for post-election violence in 2023.
The organisations which issued the alert were the National Democratic Institute and International Republican Institute.
According to them, while the secessionist agitation by the banned Indigenous People of Biafra, (IPOB) might affect voter turnout because of apathy, the proliferation of regional security elements, including Amotekun, in the South-West, and Ebube Agu, in the South-East, would increase opportunities for election violence.
The delegation of the NDI/IRI, stated these while presenting its second joint pre-elections assessment statement to journalists in Abuja on Friday.
The assessment, conducted between December 4 to 9, 2022 was built on the first assessment mission which visited Nigeria in July 2022.
The delegation observed that a major concern affecting most parts of the country is insecurity driven by extremist and sectarian violence, banditry, the rise of separatist elements, and the proliferation of informal security forces.
According to them, in addition to attacks by various violent armed groups, election-related violence in Nigeria has increased significantly over the past year.
The organisations said that despite most presidential candidates signing the first peace accord facilitated by the National Peace Committee there have been at least 50 reported incidents of electoral violence, occurring across 40 local government areas in 24 states.
The institutes observed that the security challenges, if left unaddressed, could negatively impact the credibility of the elections and increase the risk of post-election violence.
The NDI/IRI however, commended the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC), for the introduction of the Bimodal Voter Automated System, (BVAS).
The institutes warned that if there were to be a widespread malfunction of the BVAS machines as occurred with the smart card readers in 2015, it could undermine the perceived legitimacy of the elections and spark violence.
While urging INEC to clarify how underage voters, double registrations and any other criteria that would result in a voter being removed from the voter roll will be handled, they called on the commission to conduct national stress tests of the BVAS machines and the IReV system to ensure they are prepared to function effectively on election day across more than 176,000 polling units.
