High-level violence has engulfed Nigeria’s political scene four months before the country’s national elections in 2023.
According to PulseNets’ investigations, violence against opposition political groups is primarily concentrated in the states of Ebonyi, Zamfara, and Kaduna. All three of these states are All Progressives Congress, or APC, controlled.
These are taking place despite the peace agreement that all of the presidential candidates signed in Abuja, the nation’s capital, in the presence of the National Peace Committee (NPC), which is co-led by former Head of State General Abudulsami Abubakar, Sultan of Sokoto Sa’ad Abubakar II, Cardinal John Onayeikan, Bishop Hassan Kukah, and other distinguished statesmen. The NPC’s goal is to support efforts to ensure free, fair, and credible
Kashim Shettima, the running mate of APC presidential candidate Ahmed Bola Tinubu, attended the signing of the agreement on his behalf.
Many Nigerians are already concerned that as the elections approach, the situation could get worse and endanger the validity of the voting.
EBONYI
Currently, Ebonyi State in South-East Nigeria is a comedy of errors. Up until November 2020, when David Umahi, the state governor, announced his switch from the Peoples Democratic Party to the All Progressives Congress, the state has been peaceful.
Despite being ranked among the top governors in the nation for infrastructure performance, the governor is accused of doing all in his power to stifle and muzzle any form of dissent, even PDP supporters.
The government-owned Ebubeagu security operatives are at the epicentre of the storm, causing tension in the state known as Salt of the Nation.
The South-East Governors allegedly recruited the Ebubeagu operatives to hunt down killer herdsmen and other criminal elements, but according to opposition politicians in the State, they have instead gained a reputation for harming and hunting down anyone who opposes the Governor.
No day goes by, according to PulseNets, without some sort of terrible encounter being had by opposition members.
The “Obidients,” a common name for the Peter Obi support group, have also suffered. The organisation that is organising the well-known million-man march had no problems up until it reached Ebonyi State.
According to reports, the Obidients were first attacked and gassed in the State of Ebonyi throughout the entire nation. The state government publicly stated that they had refused to pay for a location for their gathering.
The purported kidnapping of Mr. Linus Okorie, the Labour Party senatorial candidate for Ebonyi South, Umahi’s zone, only recently brought Ebonyi back to life.
PulseNets later discovered that Okorie, a former member of the House of Representatives, had been taken away by Ebubeagu security personnel.
He was given to the police, who claimed the former congressman was wanted, as the outrage mounted. However, the way in which he was apprehended has angered the public, notably civil society organisations.
Some ladies and young people from his village were among the first to respond, and they closed the entrance and exit roads to the Onicha settlement.
The following was written on the banners carried by the protesters:“No movement until we see Hon. Linus. Onicha will be too hot for everybody.”
The Ebonyi State Command Commissioner of Police, CP Aliyu Garba, quickly acknowledged Okorie’s arrest.
Garba, in a statement signed and issued to newsmen in Abakaliki by the PPRO, Chris Anyanwu, said: “It is also pertinent to mention that Linus Abaa Okorie has a pending case in which he is implicated in a drug-related offence, where the suspects purported to be his agents were arrested for hard drug sales and use at his City Hub Inn, Mile 50, Abakaliki. Case was later transferred to the NDLEA for further necessary actions.”
The State government also reacted, stating that Okorie is currently cooling-off at the police network to answer for the multiple offences he (Okorie) committed, through the Commissioner of Information and State Orientation, Mr. Uchenna Orji.
He charged the former lawmaker with spreading false information and hosting drug dealers in his club space.
According to him: “Okorie was arrested in connection with serial crimes allegedly committed by him and the complicity of his club facility – the City Hub in promoting sundry crimes especially in peddling hard drugs and other illicit substances.”
In addition, Governor Umahi cleared Ebubeagu security personnel of involvement in Okorie’s alleged torture and kidnapping, claiming that the personnel are qualified and have the legal authority to detain anyone acting improperly in society.
At the time this article was written, Okorie had been charged in court and was being held at the Correctional Facility. He was charged in court with five counts, including two related to fake news, murder, and harbouring drug dealers.
Before the drama surrounding Okorie’s arrest, Mrs. Ann Agom-Eze, who is vying for the APC senatorial nomination for the zone, had also been vocal about threats to her life.
Since Umahi was still running for the party’s presidential ticket long before the senate primary was held, Agom-Eze and Umahi are engaged in a heated debate over who is the party’s legitimate candidate.
Mr. Chika Nomeh, the defendant’s lead attorney, responded to the incident by tying his client’s ordeal to the senatorial race in a statement to reporters shortly after the court session.
He said, “There is a judgement of the Federal High Court by Honourable Justice Ekwo, that restrained the Nigeria Police and the state government from arresting Linus Okorie, and the judgement is still subsisting on the same subject matter.
“We raised an objection, which we were overruled. The aim of the charges is to keep him (Okorie) behind the bars. Our client is the leading senatorial candidate of Labour Party, LP, for Ebonyi South senatorial zone. The essence of these things is to weaken him and his supporters, but at the end of the day, the law will take its cost,” he stated.
The All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, governorship candidate, Prof. Benard Odoh, claimed that he narrowly evaded being assassinated by supposed hoodlums in Izzi Local Government Area of Ebonyi State while the dust from Okorie’s case was still settling.
Odoh, who described his ordeal to reporters in Abakaliki, claimed that he received a panicked phone from his supporters informing him that the council chairman of the Izzi LGA had forbidden him from travelling to or conducting campaigning in Izzi territory.
According to him: “We have a visit to Izzi LGA because Izzi is part of Ebonyi State. We have our supporters in Izzi because it is one of the 13 LGAs of the State. We have our campaign office there.
“As early as 6:00 a.m. this morning, I started receiving distress calls. One of our coordinators called and said that the chairman of Izzi LGA called and warned him that no event will take place in the local government, that he is under pressure from the State government.
“The DPO also called and raised the same alarm, that he is under enormous pressure that we shouldn’t come. I’m the gubernatorial candidate of APGA in Ebonyi, and I’m in this race to govern everybody in the State, therefore, if I can’t go to Izzi, then it means that, I’m not qualified to stand election.
“On reaching Izzi LGA, we were confronted by Ebubeagu operatives. They shot at one of our cars, you can see it and the glass shattered. We went there with official security men, the police, the DSS, together with our campaign team.
“Governor David Umahi can’t force everyone, he should allow the people of the State to choose for themselves. This is not how to run democracy. We have the right to reach to our people.
“We are reaching out to the public to be aware, this is what has happened today. Thank God, nobody was injured but serious gunshot injuries on our cars.
“In Ezza South last week, they confronted us there. Two days ago, we inaugurated our support team, and they were also there. This can’t be the way to get into government house in 2023,” he lamented.
Not only that. Ifeanyi Chukwuma Odii, the PDP’s candidate for governor in Ebonyi State, only yesterday, on Friday, raised the issue of rising violence and insecurity in the State in advance of the upcoming general election.
Odii called on the Federal Government, headed by President Muhammadu Buhari, and the Inspector-General of Police to intervene in the recent threat to security in the State, particularly in his Onicha LGA.
The governor candidate urged President Muhammadu Buhari to use adequate security measures to bring peace and normalcy to the troubled areas in a statement signed and provided to newsmen in Abakaliki by Mr. Abia Onyike, Director, Media and Publicity, AnyiChuks Grassroots Support Organization.
According to him: “We are highly disturbed by the alarming State of security breaches in Ebonyi State, especially in Isu, Onicha LGA of Ebonyi State and its environs, including the latest abduction of the Provost of the Federal College of Education, Isu, Prof. Reuben Okechukwu.
“He was abducted by armed men on Wednesday, 19th October, 2022 at the boundary between Isu and Agba in Ishielu LGA of Ebonyi State.
“Within a space of six months, three prominent indigenes of Isu Okoma Community have been shot dead by hoodlums at different times, while the Traditional Ruler of the Community, Eze Ambrose Ogbu was kidnapped six months ago and is yet to regain his freedom.
“In the light of the above, we wish to call on the Federal Government and the Inspector-General of Police to wade into the security crises in Onicha LGA with a view to unraveling the mystery behind the continuous bloodshed in the area by miscreants.”
The developments are keeping a number of State organisations up at night, and some of them have even called on President Muhammadu Buhari to impose a state of emergency in the State.
They also demand that the State’s Commissioner of Police be promptly fired by the Inspector-General of Police. The CP is thought to be involved in the state’s criminal activities, particularly with the state government’s reported intention to repress all supporters of the opposition parties.
One of them, the Worried Nigerian Citizens, spoke through its convener Moses Idika and demanded that the State be put under emergency control.
“President Muhammadu Buhari, in line with the resolution of the National Security Council resolution of Friday October 14, 2022, (Which Mr. President convened and chaired), which enjoined all Nigerian politicians to go about electioneering activities ahead of the 2023 general elections within the laws of the land, call Governor David Umahi to order, to forestall the breakdown of law and order in Ebonyi State.
“That as an effective deterrent, in line with the constitutional powers of Mr. President as enshrined in Section 305, (1),(2), (3, b, c, d, and f) of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended), the President Muhammadu Buhari should without any delay, declare a state of emergency in Ebonyi State, as Governor David Umahi has sufficiently proven his capability and determination to sink democracy and rule of law in Nigeria,” the group stated.
Similarly, the IGP, Usman Alkali Baba, has been urged to dismiss Aliyu Garba, the Ebonyi State Commissioner of Police, without delay for allegedly putting the force into shame by the Association of Ebonyi Indigenes Socio-Cultural In Diaspora (AEISCID).
Ambassador Pascal Oluchchukwu, the president of AEISCID, issued a statement in which the organisation denounced “the gestapo style” in which Okorie was forcibly kidnapped, brutally abused, and then turned over to the police.
The fact that government institutions like the Nigeria Police Force, the Ebonyi Judiciary, and others are supporting these repulsive and anti-democratic behaviours, they claimed, makes it the more troubling for President Buhari to immediately summon Umahi to order.
It stated that more prudent people would have anticipated that the Nigeria Police, Ebonyi State Command would have acted with greater professionalism rather than following a risky script that had been given to it by the State government’s representatives.
It said: “These all point to the compromises of the Ebonyi Police Command under the CP, Aliyu Garba, the lackeys appointed as Magistrates and Judges in Ebonyi State Judiciary and indeed, the desperate foot-soldiers in Umahi’s government.”
Zamfara
The North West State is also in the news incorrectly. Anka, Bukuyum, and Gummi are the three local government districts that were locked down last week when Governor Bello Matawalle signed Executive Order No.10 suspending 2023 political activity.
According to Ibrahim Dosara, the commissioner for information, the governor made the choice “following the loss of lives of our fellow brothers and sisters”.
“Political meetings and gatherings at individual residences are also banned with immediate effect, henceforth.”
However, the PDP and other political parties in the State viewed the move as a strategy for stifling the State’s opposition.
The party questioned why the same state government that had reopened more than 40 schools now claimed that political campaigns were not appropriate in the state.
They have also claimed that the State Government hides behind the aforementioned Executive Order to prevent opposition political parties from exercising their rights in accordance with the election schedule made public by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, despite receiving defectors at the Government House on a daily basis.
However, the gathering ended in turmoil as the opposition party continued with their political activities. Thugs allegedly deployed to disrupt the PDP event, according to some reports.
The PDD claims that the party’s Saturday gathering was solely to collect defectors from the state’s 14 LGAs.
After the event, according to Murkhtar Lugga, the PDP’s deputy chairman in Zamfara, the party had 50 defectors from each of the 14 local government areas.
However, he claimed that several PDP youths had been attacked at the event and that two of its supporters had been shot in front of the governorship candidate’s Gusau campaign headquarters.
The incident left at least two people dead and several others seriously injured.
Additionally, a popular video depicts security personnel firing at Peoples Democratic Party supporters (PDP).
On Thursday, the second anniversary of End SARS, the incident reportedly took place inside the party’s campaign office in Gusau, the nation’s capital.
The attack on the PDP gathering has not been assigned blame, despite the APC-led government’s insistence that none of its members were involved.
The Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, the International Press Council, IPC, and other illustrious organisations have all strongly denounced the State Government’s decision to lock down multiple media outlets for covering the PDP event.
KADUNA
In Kaduna, another North West State, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, campaign train was also targeted.
During a rally for the party’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, hostility was directed at the party’s members.
In Kaduna State’s Ranchers Bees Stadium, it was claimed that unidentified hoodlums had interfered with the PDP’s presidential campaign.
Atiku claimed in a series of tweets that the “sponsored thugs” attacked party members.
He claimed that the alleged assault violated the peace agreement that all of the presidential contenders had signed.
“I have just received emergency reports of attacks on Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) supporters by thugs sponsored to scuttle the ongoing PDP campaign rally in Kaduna State. This is undemocratic and against the Peace Accord all parties signed up for just a few weeks ago.
“I urge President Muhammadu Buhari to call on all parties to call their supporters and members to order and to ensure that campaigns, just as with the elections themselves, are kept free, fair and safe,” he tweeted.
It is thought that Governor Nasir El-Rufai is not saying anything to ease the political tensness in the State.
The governor only recently asserted his authority to ask Mr. Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s presidential candidate, to be arrested. In 2013, he claimed that Obi had ordered his detention during the Anambra State governorship election. “Your next guest, Peter Obi, was the governor of Anambra State when I was there in 2013 as an APC official to observe the by-election for governor. He had me jailed in my hotel room for 48 hours after having me arrested.
“Now, I am the governor of Kaduna State and he is coming to Kaduna. In addition to the police and the SSS, I have one mechanised division of the Nigeria Army, but we are northerners; we are civilised. We don’t do things like that,” Mr El-Rufai said.
This is true despite the fact that he acknowledged in a previous media interview that his detention was planned by specific Abuja authorities. When the PDP controlled the Federal Government, Obi was a member of the APGA.
Highly ranked politicians have been chastised for making statements of this nature that have the potential to incite certain supporters of the ruling party against the Labour Party and other opposition parties.
Comrade Kindness Jonah, the South-East regional coordinator for the Civil Liberties Organization (CLO), told PulseNets that the organisation was concerned about efforts being made to intimidate opposition parties nationwide.
Jonah said, “We have come to observe that what is purely undemocratic and unethical in the political landscape is happening now. What cannot be tolerated at all in any sphere of equity, is happening in some States of the country. We expect parity, which is democracy.
“But right now, they are not allowing opposition. It is condemnable; no matter how acidic the voice of the opposition is, you have to allow them to operate.
“One thing about democracy is that you must allow your opponent to say what he wants to say; you give him leverage to talk. You can counter him by your ideological points. Marshall them out, counter them, not to come physical. If you go physical, then it is not democracy.
“So, what is happening now across the country where you have people burning the office of Labour Party, PDP members being attacked and vice versa, APC carrying out attacks on others, things like that, we cannot tolerate it in civil society and in any civilized nation at all.
“We in the civil society are condemning these unprovoked attacks no matter where they are happing. Live and let live is the hallmark of democracy anywhere. You must accept the opposition. Go and campaign, convince people, market you candidates, propagate your party’s ideology. Let the electorate support you based on what you present to them, not to come physical and attack the opposition; such actions stand totally condemned.”
The Jonah issued a warning over the implications of the development for the 2023 elections, “It will jeopardize the election. Once this thing is not curtailed, once everybody does not rise up to condemn this anomaly, then be sure that all these miscreants will also handle gun and start shooting sporadically to ward-off opposition and have their way. When this happens, it will impugn on the integrity and credibility of the elections.”
In a separate speech, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, National Coordinator of the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), criticised the Nigeria Police for failing to stop the escalating political violence.
“Political violence is heightening with the rapidity of a stormy weather and the Nigeria Police Force is incapable of stopping these trends for a number of factors and indicators one of which is the deep politicization of policing institution in Nigeria, beginning with the unnatural way that the Constitution ceded the power of command and control on the President with very loose checks and balances by a weak National Police Council, that is also chaired by the President and a deliberately weakened and institutionally compromised Police Service Commission, which has also failed to instil discipline and professionalism in the Force,” Onwubiko told PulseNets in an interview.
He added that, “the political party running the federal government and the parties controlling all the States use their financial clout garnered illegitimately from the commonwealth to corner loyalty by the armed forces of Nigeria and sadly, these governors and offices of the Central government often misuse their powers to deploy the police for dirty political actions targeting their political opponents.
“The police must at all times be professionally governed and there is the need for the Police Service Commission to be allowed to work independently so as to enforce the ethics and laws and regulations guiding the operation of the police.
