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Kehinde Akintola – Abuja
Barely 72 hours to the conduct of the Presidential and National Assembly elections in Nigeria, the British Government reiterated her resolve to impose travel ban and other sanctions on Politicians and promoters of electoral violence in Nigeria.
The British High Commissioner in Nigeria, Catrionia Laing who stated this during the formal opening of the Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room’s Election Situation Room located at Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja, expressed grave concern over the effects of the Federal Government’s new currency policy on the citizenry.
The British High Commissioner who frowned at the ripple effects of the new cash policy, tasked Federal Government and Central bank of Nigeria (CBN) on the need to make available sufficient currency for Nigerian citizens with a view to mitigate against the hardship being faced by Nigerians across the country.
She said: “It’s really heartbreaking, I think and the suffering that is going on. And we are also imploring that the maximum that can be done to enable people to access cash is done before the election, as you say, because there’s so much at stake. Of course, there’s some Supreme Court rules today. So, it’ll be interesting to see what that for that judgment is.
“On violence and hate speech, I completely concur. It’s a crime and there should be consequences. People may have heard me say this yesterday on my various interviews that the UK has just issued a statement, our Minister for International Development in Africa, Andrew Mitchell, stating very clearly that we monitor this very carefully.
“And anybody who’s found to be inciting violence, including through hate speech, as well as of course actually conducting violent acts could be subject to a travel visa ban to the UK. We also have potential sanctions through our human rights levers. So, we are watching carefully we have used these tools in the past. We don’t disclose who is on our list for data protection reasons.
“But I can tell people and rest assured we are watching very, very closely. So that’s our contribution that we would like to make to holding people’s feet to the fire on this very important issue of hate speech and incitement to violence, because everyone must be able to conduct the election and vote for who they want peacefully without any fear or intimidation.”
Speaking earlier, Convener of Situation Room, Ms. Ene Obi who spoke on behalf of the over 70 Civil Society Organisations working in support of credible and transparent elections in Nigeria, frowned at the prevailing security threats trailing the 2023 general elections.
According to her, “the Election Security Threat Assessment produced by Situation Room partners presents a grim picture of the elections. The security situation across the country appears to be deteriorating as we enter the election week. The South-East region, in particular, has witnessed escalation of violence with the disruption of INEC Adhoc staff training in Nnewi South LGA of Anambra State by hoodlums, and attacks on police stations in Oyi and Idemili North LGAs of the State.
“In spite of this grim security outlook, the Nigeria Police, which is the lead agency on election security, is yet to present a clear and detailed election security plan to the public. The Situation Room welcomes the announcement that about 400,000 security personnel will be deployed for the election.
“However, we call on the leadership of the Nigeria Police to provide additional information regarding the deployment plans, especially the contact details of the commanding officers at zonal, state, area, and divisional levels to enable stakeholders liaise with these officials. The Nigeria Police and other security agencies have a primary responsibility to safeguard election officials as well as other election stakeholders, including voters, polling agents, election observers, the media and service providers.”
In the bid to effective checkmate the spate of violence during the general elections, she called on the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to u necessary measures in place.
“The issue of the hate speeches, we watch that and we call on them again not to use two measures. If people have hate speeches, no matter who they are, they should be arrested and they should be punished. And we also watching the Judiciary, we want an election where there will be more pronouncements from INEC not the Judiciary. I think the Judiciary in Nigeria is on trial in this election, and we will be watching out and checking everyone.”
While speaking on the prevailing socio-economic hardship triggered by the currency policy, Ms. Obi who frowned at the timing of the policy, flawed President Buhari’s decision on the policy, just as she reiterated the CSOs position on the CBN Governor’s continued stay in office following his involvement in partisan politics.
“We have no idea of how they came about this issue of naira swap, a few months to the election. The president has been on ground for almost 8 years and just in the closing minutes before the election, if you want to tackle corruption, there are so many things you should have done before now to make sure that nobody buys vote.
“We are having some of the off-cycle elections that we had, we had some people who were violators of these issues and sanctions have not been emitted.
“And so, we are really concerned by what the general populace is facing. What Nigerians are tough people Nigerians are tough people, how many of them are surviving? Even we are receiving reports that some people are dying in the hospitals because their accounts are not working or the money is not going through and the hospital says you have to pay the bills first.
“You know, so a lot is happening for Nigerians are many also hungry and they cannot get money out. We noted that in the report, and we appreciate that. But it’s to say I still see we see that Nigerians are ready to vote in the elections. Every election so far, like you mentioned this segment in the series, each one has its challenges. But we can’t put give the best that we can and so the hardship is real.
“We don’t want to mention the Central Bank Governor because the Situation Room, we have called him out because he was one of the contestants. You know, he’s a politician. We don’t know what he’s doing there and so, we find a convergence of the interests of him not being a candidate anymore to being a Central Bank Governor. And then you know, now Nigerians are being stifled, for what?
“But we still ask the CBN to release money to Nigerians. Let the ATMs be functioning. They have technical people on ground and we ask for the collaboration of all agencies, because everywhere you are, you have DSS in every nook and corner in this country, they know which ATM is working, which one is not working.
“There should be Special Forces if they really have released this money to the banks to make sure that the money is available to the people. So, it is hard but we know that Nigerians are resilient people. And that’s why we say on the basis of this, Nigerians are ready to still cast their votes.
In his remarks, Executive Director of Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC), Dr. Clement Nwankwo who spoke on the new currency policy, argued that Nigeria may be forced to be changing its currency every election year going by the posture of the present administration on vote buying.
“if the intention regarding the use of cash for election is the purpose of the naira currency, I’m not quite sure what to call it, is it redesign or recolouring or swap or what? But whatever it is, then it means that in 2027 if we don’t do what is right now we would also be having another currency redesign which could be a problem.”
In the bid to leave a worthwhile electoral legacy for the country, he tasked President Buhari on the need to prioritize the Election Offences Commission Bill which encapsulates various concerns on vote buying among others.
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