President Goodluck Jonathan has disagreed with the Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) over what used to cause electoral violence in Nigerian.
Buhari had said today, at a stakeholders’ workshop on violence- free 2015 elections held in Abuja, that rigging and falsification of election results have been the main cause of post- election violence.
But Jonathan countered by saying that post election violence is often caused by inflammatory statements made by politicians and religious/ ethnic leaders as well as a weak system which allows people of questionable character to join politics.
President Jonathan reminded the audience that after the 2011 Presidential election, serious violence broke out majorly in Kano and Bauchi states where he had performed very poorly.
“The emphasis here is electoral violence, not electoral malpractices. With electoral malpractices, the courts can help. To some extent but there is nothing the courts can do about electoral violence. If a property is burnt, it is burnt. If you identify the person, yes, he can go in for arson charges. It is often difficult convicting people.
“If you look at the history of election in this country, for people of my age and above, we were told that there were electoral violence by the people of south west. And that violence led to the collapse of the first Republic.
“In the second republic which I was old enough to observe as a student, we noticed that at the beginning, political parties, the key actors were even relating. After the elections, Governors from different parties were even relating. But as the second round of elections were coming on board, the behavior changed and people started insulting themselves. I remember a particular day, I was worried because as President Shehu Shagari was approaching one state, even the commentators on the radio were abusing him.
“Of course, I was not surprised that, that second republic did not last. Once the politicians start abusing themselves, insulting every institutions, it is just like what late Tai Solarin referred to as ” the beginning of the end
“If you look at the 2011 elections, we approached it differently, I am happy that Civil Society people are here, they did mention that 2011 election was much better than any other conducted by the country.
“Even then, at the end of the election, violence still ensued in some parts of the country. Even in Kano and Bauchi properties and houses were burnt down and in Bauchi, 10 young innocent Youth Corpers were slaughtered.
“Violence in that election erupted when election results were still being announced. As we were approaching the end, it was clear that a particular candidate was likely to win and violence erupted in Kano and Bauchi.
“The only thing one can deduce, because we cannot say there were malpractices to favour the candidate that won because in Kano, I only got 16% and in Bauchi 15% of the total votes cast. Even in states where we got more than 50 percent, there were no violence. So, violence are not necessarily caused by electoral malpractices.” [myad]
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