A research foundation claims that 15 States in Nigeria may be destabilised by electoral violence during the 2015 general elections.A non-governmental organisation CLEEN Foundation revealed the list in Abuja on April 9, 2014, Wednesday, while presenting the report titled ‘Third Security Threat Assessment’. The NGO, which promotes public safety, security, and access to justice, warned of high security risks there during the 2015 election.
The States tagged as ‘most volatile’ are:Adamawa, Benue, Borno, Ebonyi, Ekiti, Enugu, Imo, Kaduna, Nasarawa, Osun, Plateau, Rivers, Taraba, Yobe and Zamfara. It is not surprising: three of these States, Adamawa, Borno, and Yobe, are already under emergency rule due to the activities of the terrorist Boko Haram group. Plateau, Benue, Nasarawa, Kaduna, and Zamfara were the arena of recent killings of hundreds of people by unidentified armed men. The area is suffering from communal and ethno-religious violence. For instance, over 100 people were killed in Zamfara community by unidentified gunmen over the weekend.
The NGO had previously listed Borno, Rivers, Bauchi, Plateau, Kaduna, Benue, Nasarawa, Delta, Sokoto, Adamawa, and Yobe as the most volatile States in last year’s report (July 2013).
There are 11 ‘mid-volatile’ States:
Abia, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Bauchi, Delta, Gombe, Kano, Katsina, Kogi, Niger and Sokoto.
The remaining states, including Lagos, Ondo, others, are tagged as ‘low-volatile’ or stable states, while Ekiti and Osun States oscillate between most volatile and mid-volatile groups.
The Criteria
CLEEN Foundation uses such criteria and parameters as:
- history of violence;
- degree of control by incumbent and relationship with the Federal Government;
- stability of internal state party politics;
- existence of terrorists and militants;
- existence of communal and religious conflicts;
- bid for second term by the incumbent governor;
- jostle for federal and state legislative positions;
- and etc.
However, such major risk factors as proliferation of arms and increased activities by armed groups were also considered towards the 2015 election. CLEEN Foundation said the threat assessment will run quarterly till June; every two months after June; and then fortnightly by 2015.
Recommendations
The NGO gave the following recommendations to prevent violence during the 2015 elections:
- rapid response to humanitarian crisis in the North East;
- concerted checks to reduce inflow of small arms into Nigeria;
- election related stakeholders, including security agencies, Independent National Electoral Commission and political groups must mainstream conflict management in their plans ahead of 2015.
It would be recalled that in 2011, Nigeria was rocked by post-election violence which resulted in the death of many citizens in various states, including National Youth Service Corps members who were deployed there.
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