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2023: Election, campaigns and rising insecurity

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The Nigerian 2023 general election is in six months and all participating political parties have their hopes, sweat and grit gearing towards a clinical campaign and a successful election. Political candidates are pumping monies into different schemes, like a nozzle dispensing fuel into cars; all to achieve one goal, “to make me look good and electable to the people.”

Before the primaries held by the significant parties, countless shenanigans have been witnessed by the electorates, with slogans like ’emi lokan’ which means, ‘I am next’ going viral. Aspirants playing the game of politics, as witnessed during the primaries of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and different types of name-calling. No one is talking about competence, delivery and good governance, all talks have been about donations, discrediting other candidates and verbal sword-play.

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Buhari campaigning in 2014

In 2014, the All Progressives Congress rode on the back of insecurity to bring the Goodluck Jonathan administration to disrepute. Eight years after, insecurity has eaten deep into the system and is competing with corruption in terms of proliferation. As the Buhari-led administration is packing up, more cases of insecurity have continued to spring up. Fresh in our memory is the Owo massacre, where unknown gunmen attacked a Catholic Church. While worshippers during service were gunned at leading to the death of 40 persons. A mass burial was held for those who died on Friday, June 17, 2022. Recently, the army announced the arrest and published names of the masterminds with a connection with the Kuje Prison break claimed by ISWAP which occurred in July, leading to a mass release of inmates and suspected terrorists.

Prior to this dreadful attack was the Abuja-Kaduna train attack on 28 March 2022, which was characterised by mass shooting, bombing and kidnapping of the passengers aboard a Nigerian Railway Corporation train. Some victims of the kidnap are still with their abductors. A video went viral in July where some of the victims were seen beaten by their abductors, with some of them later released following the Kuje prison break.

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Kaduna train attack

In July 2021, SBM Intelligence, a geopolitical and economic research firm, in its 2021 half-year kidnap report stated that N10 billion was demanded in ransom in the first half of 2021 and pegged the total number of kidnapped persons at 2,371. Murders, kidnapping, armed robbery attacks, traffic robberies, religious extremism, et al. have become the order of the day in the country in the last few years.

The month of June has seen the death of many and numerous kidnaps, with every region counting their loss. At least 57 people were abducted from two villages – Gebe and Alkammu – during an attack by bandits in the Isa Local Government Area of Sokoto State on Saturday afternoon. The assailants killed a village head’s wife and wounded several others during the attack.

Thirty-two people were reportedly killed in Kaduna on Sunday, June 5, due to an attack by gunmen on Ungwan Gamu, Dogon Noma, Ungwan Sarki and Maikori villages near Maro in the Kajuru Local Government Area. Armed men attacked the communities between noon and 6 pm without military intervention.

In Kwara, an 18-seater bus in Ekiti Local Government Area was attacked, with two passengers killed and several others abducted.

The FCT witnessed the murder of a farmer, Hussaini Takuma, whose body was dumped in an abandoned well. The assailants reportedly stole 30 cattle and 20 goats after killing the farmer, they were later arrested, and the body was recovered and buried.

IPOB/ESN has continued attacks in the South-East and nothing has been done so far, this is including the compulsory Monday sit-at-home order in all southeastern states which is crippling businesses in the region.

Questions have been raised on why the federal government is yet to track the perpetrators of these injustices in the country. In 2020, citizens were forced to link their National Identity Number (NIN) with their mobile numbers because according to the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami who also doubles as the Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency, it would help state actors fish out the perpetrators of terrorism in the country.

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Nigerians were mandated to link their NIN with the mobile numbers in 2020

In September 2021, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) released the names of six Nigerian terrorist financiers of Boko Haram, namely; Abdurrahman Ado Musa, Salihu Yusuf Adamu, Bashir Ali Yusuf, Muhammed Ibrahim Isa, Ibrahim Ali Alhassan and Surajo Abubakar Muhammad, all Nigerians, a Nigerian government official was also alleged to be a sponsor of the sect.

The U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, Mary Beth Leonard, last year said her country was very eager to partner with Nigeria on identifying Boko Haram sponsors, but a former Assistant Director of the Department of State Services, Dennis Amachree asked, is the FG ready “to arrest and prosecute these sponsors when exposed? Are we simply going to lock them away, as has been done in the past?”

This is 2022, nothing has been done to ease the level of insecurity in the country through the NIN.

None of the major three presidential candidates, former Lagos State governor, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, former vice president, Abubakar Atiku and former governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi have given any tangible manifesto on how the problem of insecurity would be solved.

Outside insecurity is the lackadaisical attitude of the government towards the lingering education challenge. So many things have gone wrong. Can we still expect something good out of the current administration? Why would the electorate choose to vote for someone who not just represents a continuation of the Buhari administration, but looks frail and enervated? Is it right that someone who has been vying for the position of the presidency since 1992 still wants to control the national cake or the one who seems to be experienced economically but doesn’t have any experience in handling enormous security challenges such as that of Nigeria?

The election will come and go, and we will be faced with the choices we make come 2023, whether it is Tinubu, Atiku, Obi or another party candidate. It is, however, imperative that the leaders of Nigeria present and future take a leaf from their counterparts in the West, where sectors of the country do not go to sleep just because they are campaigning for election. Lagos State governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has been spotted with the APC presidential candidate everywhere he goes. Does this mean, the state with the largest economy will be put on hold during the campaign? Let our leaders have a rethink and give true democracy and good governance a voice in the political space of Nigeria.

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