Afenifere to politicians: Stop verbal, physical violence

AN-Yoruba socio-political organization, Afenifere, has expressed concern over the increasing verbal and physical attacks characterising the ongoing election campaigns.

In a press release signed by the organisation’s National Publicity Secretary, Comrade Jare Ajayi, Afenifere charged political parties and their candidates to focus on ways they intend to attend to the challenges facing the country rather than resorting to utterances and actions that border on “de-marketing of opponents and possibly causing bodily harms on other people.”

Maintaining that Nigerian politics should have matured beyond brickbats, the body said the verbal attacks emanating from some candidates and their spokespersons were encouraging their supporters to violently attack opponents in a manner that could result in bloodshed.

The statement made reference to the various allegations raised by one of the spokespersons of the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential campaign council, Mr Festus Keyamo against the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar same as the spokesperson of the PDP, Mr Debo Ologunagba levelling accusations against standard-bearer of the APC, Senator Bola Tinubu.

The statement also noted the fear expressed by stakeholders including officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) regarding attacks on INEC facilities that threaten the elections.

The statement further read: “Candidates and political parties that have good programmes to execute would not resort to verbal or physical attacks. We urge political parties and their candidates to focus on what plans they have to put an end or at least ameliorate the sufferings of Nigerians. They should let us know that they un- derstand they enormity of the problems facing us and that they have solutions to these problems. An end should be put to mutual self-abuse either verbally or physically.

“Earlier last week, a man suspected to be one of the supporters of the Labour Party Presidential Candidate, Mr. Peter Obi, was allegedly tortured by some unknown men at Oraifite in the Ekwusigo Local Government Area of Anambra State.

“A video clip that has been circulating on the social media shown the leader of the unknown gunmen threatening that anyone caught wearing or putting on any campaign material of politicians would be severely dealt with.

“On Friday, January 20, 2023, three persons were reportedly injured, fol- lowing double explosions that rocked a rally by the All Progressives Congress, APC, at the Rumu-Woji Play Ground, also known as Ojukwu Field in Port Harcourt, Rivers State,” the group stated.

Speaking further, Afenifere, while expressing serious concern over the escalating violence in spite of various peace accords being signed by presidential candidates, among others, cited the report of a research organization, SB Morgan, which revealed that 27 Nigerians were killed in 57 politically-motivated violent incidents between January and December 2022.

Besides, the group quoted the National Security Adviser (NSA) to the President, Major General Babagana Monguno (retd), as saying that Nigeria recorded 52 acts of political violence across 22 states between October 8 and November 9, which, it said, occurred within just one month.

“Monguno said this at an emergency meeting of the Inter-agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES) organised by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Abuja recently.

“The electoral commission had earlier said that as at December 2022, it had recorded 50 attacks in 15 of the country’s 36 states and the federal capital (Abuja) since 2019. There have been some other at- tacks since then, including the ones that happened in Ogun, Osun, Imo, Ebonyi, Abia and Enugu states, among others.

“Penultimate week, the attacks became so worri-some that INEC officials spoke of the danger the attacks could constitute for the smooth conduct of the forthcoming elections,” Afenifere stated.