According to International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES), “electoral violence could be regarded as elections-motivated-crisis employed to alter, change or influence by force or coercion the electoral behaviour of voters, voting patterns or possibly reverse electoral decision in favour of particular individual, groups or political party. It could be seen as any violence or threat of violence that is aimed at any person or property involved in the election process, or at disrupting any part of the electoral or political process during the election period”.
Electoral violence could be before the election, thus involving all such activities that inflict any form of injury to the democratic system and its constituent and could be during voter registrations, campaigns and actual voting. Such violence could also be a post-election phenomenon which comes consequent on the manipulation of election results, rejection of results, etc.
Election-related violence according to Ladan (2006) could be categorised into physical and psychological. Physical election violence including physical attack, resulting into assault, battery, grievous bodily harm or death, disruption and other campaign, use of abusive language and other forms of violence inflicted on individuals and groups.
Psychological election violence, including indiscriminate pasting of campaign posters, chanting slogans (particularly the use of local poets and singers to attack and abuse opponents), intimidation of public servants and businessmen for opposing the status quo or the incumbent administration, use of the media (especially state-owned) to inflict psychological violence on the opposition and the denial of access to such media by the opposition parties, reckless driving by those in a procession to campaign rallies, which intimidate other road users and the use of traditional ruler to influence the masses into electing particular preferred candidates.
Francis (2007) defines Conflict as “the pursuit of incompatible interest and goals by different groups”. Simply conflict defines as a clash or disagreement, often violent between two opposing groups or individuals.
Just as peace is a by-product of justice; likewise, is conflict a by‐product of injustice, perceived or real. Violence and conflict are inextricably linked.
Violence is a form of expression of conflict, and it can be direct or structural, unattended crises lead to conflict. Conflict is a disagreement, dispute or controversy between different parties, and it has always been regarded as part of human condition.
Transformation, it aims to transform negative destructive conflict into positive constructive conflict and deals with structural, behavioural and attitudinal aspects of conflict. The term refers to both the process and the completion of the process.
Recommendations
(1) Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) should be neutral, transparent, professional at all time.
(2) The Electoral body should deploy observer missions for longer periods before and after the votes to monitor the process more comprehensively.
(3) The civil society should engage more actively with youth leaders and other legally sustained associations, especially in poor urban and rural areas, strengthen participatory early warning and early response systems, and raise timely alerts of possible violence.
(4) The media should enjoy freedom of expression and should ensure unbiased, but investigative and developmental journalism that entails factual and balanced reporting of all election-related developments, and avoid publishing hateful, divisive and inflammatory statements.
(5) The Government should avoid impartial and undemocratic actions, especially again the rule of law and the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.Politicians should avoid inflammatory statements, but should publicly denounce violence, pledge to respect rules, in particularly the Code of Conduct for Political Parties, and pursue grievances through lawful channels.
(6) The educational system should Incorporate Peace Studies as a subject/course in school curriculum, and use sport as a unifying factor for conflict transformation.
(7) The political parties should encourage a developmental internal politics within their parties, respect party constitutions , particularly allow democratic candidate selections, and avoid a “do-or-die” politicking.
(8) Electoral reforms should be encouraged to accommodate innovative ideas and policies that will give deliverables of an improved electoral practice and well-being of the masses.
– Isaac Kayode Obajemu
ikobaj@gmail.com
