Enforcement Of Electoral Law And Electoral Violence In Nigeria
By Dr. Muhammed Tawfiq Ladan
INTRODUCTION
The recently intensified worldwide struggle by people for free and fair elections, often at great personal risk, demonstrates how important this right has become to individuals everywhere. Countries and peoples across the globe have recognized that free and fair elections are a crucial point on the continuum of democratization and an imperative means of giving voice to the will of the people, which is the basis of governmental authority itself.
To be free, participation in elections must be conducted in an atmosphere characterized by the absence of intimidation and the presence of wide range of fundamental human rights, such as, the rights to free expression, information, opinion, assembly, association and to protection from violence and all forms of discrimination. Political propaganda, voter education activities, political meetings and rallies, and partisan organizations are all common elements of the electoral process, and each must operate without unreasonable interferences for the conduct of the elections to be free. Similarly, judicial procedures must be insulated from corruption, manipulation, undue interference and partisan influence if they are to accommodate the necessary electoral functions of hearing petitions, objections and complaints.
Moreover, laws to be enforced which might have the effect of discouraging political participation should be repealed. The prevailing atmosphere should be one of respect for the rule of law, human rights and should be characterized by an absence of intimidating factors.
Meaning of ‘electoral violence’
The term “electoral” is an activity or practice connected with the process of choosing a person or a group of people for a position, especially a political position, by voting.
In electoral practices, therefore, there is a direct relation between the size of an electorate and the formalization and standardization of its voting practices. In very small voting groups, in which political encounters are face-to-face and the members are bound together by ties of friendship or common experience, voting is mostly informal and may not even require counting, because the sense of the meeting emerges from the group’s deliberations.
By way of contrast, in modern mass electorate, in which millions of individual votes are aggregated into the collective choice, formalization and standardization of voting practices and vote counting are the rule.
This is necessary in order to guarantee that the outcome can be considered valid, reliable and legitimate. Validity means that the collective choice in fact expresses the sense of the electorate. Reliability means that each vote is accurately recorded and effectively counted into the total. Legitimacy means that the criteria of validity and reliability have been met; so that the result of the voting is acceptable and provides authoritative guidelines in subsequent political conduct.
Today, electoral practices around the world differ a great deal, depending not just on formal institutional arrangements, but even more on a country’s political culture.
The term “violence” is defined as any act which causes or may cause any person physical, psychological, emotional, sexual, verbal or economic harm, whether this occurs in private or public life, in peacetime or in conflict situations.
The term “Electoral violence” therefore, means any act of violence perpetrated in the course of political activities, including pre, during and post election periods, and may include any of the following acts: thuggery, use of force to disrupt political meetings or voting at polling stations, or the use of dangerous weapons to intimidate voters and other electoral process, or to cause bodily harm or injury to any person connected with electoral processes.
Meaning of ‘enforcement’
The term ‘enforcement’ is the act of putting something such as a law into effect of the execution of a law or the carrying out of a mandate or command. Enforcement also refers to the act of causing the decision of a court or tribunal to take effect or to compel obedience to it. Judgements for money payments may be enforced by a writ of fi fa, garnishee proceedings, judgement summons, charging order, appointment of a receiver, order of committal or writ of sequestration. Judgements for possession of land may be enforced by writ of possession while the writ of delivery may be used to enforce a judgement requiring the delivery of goods. In case of a judgement requiring the performance of or abstention from an act, enforcement may be effected by a writ of sequestration or an order of committal.
Hence enforcement of electoral law is about giving effect to or ensuring compliance with the rules and regulations governing the conduct of elections: - pre, during and post. It refers also to matters relating to registration of political parties, regulating and monitoring the behaviour or activities of both political parties and politicians as well as other electorates before, during and post election periods in order to ensure a free and fair elections in the interest of democratic governance and respect for popular will.
Nature and causes of electoral violence in Nigeria
Violence has become part of the political culture in Nigeria such that all elections are virtually violence-ridden. That violence is manifest in all the three states of the election process: pre-election, during elections, and post-election period. A recent survey shows that the respondents agreed that pre-election violence often manifests in issues such as these problems of party formation, government sponsorship of certain party or parties, manipulation by political stalwarts, competition for power or candidature struggles even during the period before primaries, zoning problems in the selection of candidates or party executives, lack of ideology for many parties, interference of government in the affairs of electoral bodies, and sheer intolerance towards difference of opinion or ideology. That violence during elections is reflected in these: lack of security of elected posts, partisanship of traditional rulers, abuse of responsibility by election officials, institutional weaknesses (as seen, for instance, in the role of the police), the “winner takes – all” syndrome, which makes political contest a “do-or-die” affair, and the lucrative nature of political offices. That post-election violence is that which takes place even after the election process, and it is manifest in the following: government repression of failed candidates or politicians, especially civil servants; marginalization of areas controlled by the opposition; poor handling of election petitions by the Judiciary, especially election tribunals.
The dimensions of election violence in Nigeria are broadly grouped into physical and psychological. Physical election violence including physical attack, resulting into assault, battery, grievous bodily harm or death, disruption and other campaign, use of abusive language and other forms of violence inflicted on individuals and groups. Psychological election violence, including indiscriminate pasting of campaign posters, chanting slogans (particularly the use of local poets and singers to attack and abuse opponents), intimidation of public servants and businessmen for opposing the status quo or the incumbent administration, use of the media (especially state owned) to inflict psychological violence on the opposition and the denial of access to such media by the opposition parties, reckless driving by those in a procession to campaign rallies, which intimidate other road users and the use of traditional ruler to intimidate the masses into electing particular preferred candidates.
It is evident from the above analysis that the violence that occurs either during electioneering campaigns or on the day of elections has broader physical and psychological dimensions. The physical aspects are the ones well known, which consist of attacks and assaults by one group of partisans on another, resulting in injuries, and often death. Candidates often recruit and arm gangs of youth, ostensibly for protection against the scheming of opponents, but in reality often used for premeditated attacks on opponents. At the other extreme, they include the use of hired assassins to eliminate political opponents perceived to be a threat to one’s chances of electoral victory.
The psychological dimensions of this violence are inflicted upon people by the aggressive, abrasive and anarchic conduct of candidates and their supporters both during campaigns and on election day. The ways in which campaign posters are massively produced and indiscriminately pasted, even on road traffic signs and on public building, etc as well as the manner by which convoys of reckless drivers, conveying candidates and their supporters to and from campaign rallies, obstruct traffic, cause accidents and injure pedestrians, are clear illustrations of this phenomenon, which although subtle are nonetheless quite devastating in the totality of their impact on peace, order, good neighbourliness, stability, human rights and well-being of society.
They constitute psychological violence in the sense that they insult as well as assault the people’s and society’s moral sense of decorum, respectability and integrity, and they as well cause anxiety and apprehension among the public any time campaign rallies are scheduled.
The nature, extent and magnitude of violence associated with elections in this country are posing a serious threat to the national quest for stable democratic transition, as well as to the attainment of the long-term goal of consolidated democracy. Unless concerned groups of stakeholders work assiduously to deal with these problems, at this nascent stage, they could grow and assume monstrous proportions, such as could detail not just the Nigerian democratisation process, but also the Nigerian national project.
It is imperative at this stage therefore to examine some key factors responsible for election violence in Nigeria.
According to recent study, public perception of factors such as greed, electoral abuse, corruption of electoral practice or process, rigging of elections, electoral fraud, thuggery and abuse of power.
1. Greed: The word “greed” has been defined as “wanting or strong desire for more power, money, possessions, etc, than a person needs”. In the context of election violence, the phenomenon of greed itself seems to be really critical and the greed translates not just from those who want to capture power and use its perquisites, but also those who are aspiring to replace them.
2. Electoral abuses: Abuse of electoral practices is, of course, not limited to bribery or intimidation of the individual voter. The possibilities are endless, ranging from the dissemination of scurrilous rumours about candidates, and deliberately false campaign propaganda, to tampering the election machinery by stuffing the ballot box with fraudulent returns, dishonest counting or reporting of the vote, and total disregard of electoral outcomes by incumbent office-holders. The existence of these practices depends more on a population’s adherence to political civility and the democratic ethos than on the prohibitions and sanctions written into the law.
3. Rigging of Election: Election rigging is a criminal conduct of subverting an entire electoral process through massive organized fraud with the active participation of officials of the electoral body. Election rigging takes place in three phases: before, during and after elections. Experience has shown that rigging can take many forms. It could be by stuffing of the ballot box with fake ballot papers before the election day or on the election day, falsification of results and forgery of figures both at polling units and collation centres, voting by unregistered person and publication of false statement of the withdrawal of a candidate. Constructive ways of rigging elections include creating artificial scarcity of ballot papers in “safe” polling booths of the opponents, diversion or snatching of ballot boxes between polling booths and counting centres and abduction of returning officers. All these actions are usually perpetrated for gratification.
Rigging an election remains the single most incendiary malpractice that can easily throw the entire election process into violent upheaval. In Nigeria’s experience, there were occasions when announcement revealed as winners candidates completely outside the expectations of the majority of the electorate. On such occasion, immediate blow-up and tumult can occur at the very point of collation and declaration of results. Such quakes can easily spread like bush fire throughout the country. Nothing stems it, usually, other than a military intervention.
4. Abuse of power: The tendency for abuse of legal power is evident from the understanding or the possible areas of operational conflict between the activities of law enforcement agents and protection of individual rights, especially under the guise of maintenance of law and order, peace and national security. It is an abuse of legal power for any law enforcement agency or government functionary to use the power conferred upon it by law inconsistent with the purpose of the law in society. Accordingly, it is an abuse of the legal power for any law enforcement agency to witch-hunt innocent citizens or to allow itself to be used in carrying out personal vendetta and harassment against fellow Nigerians.
Abuse of legal power by all those in authority is a threat not only to the existence of law, but also to the corporate existence of society. Relying on the Rule of Law ideal, abuse of legal power wears the cloak of legitimacy as it breeds instability and chaos in society. Hence the exercise of legal power must be in the interest of the survival of human beings, respect for human rights and promotion of good government.