2023 Poll: Beyond Signing of Peace Accord

Emameh Gabriel writes that with the recent signing of the peace accord by the 18 presidential candidates contesting the 2023 election much still needed to be done by all stakeholders including the judiciary to ensure the next general election is devoid of crisis

Last week, all the 18 political parties contesting next year’s presidential election gathered at the International Conference Center in Abuja, to sign a peace accord committing them to peaceful conduct before, during, and after the 2023 polls.

Although presidential flag bearer of the ruling All Progressive Congress,Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, was absent at the event, his running mate, Senator Kashim Shettima, including candidates of the main opposition PDP, Atiku Abubakar; Peter Obi of Labour Party and their New Nigerian Peoples Party’s counterpart, Rabiu Kwankwaso and others signed the agreement that commits them to the rules of engagement going into the campaigns and elections.

The event was organised by the National Peace Committee headed by General Abdulsalam Abubakar as the first step towards peace building ahead of the elections, while a second peace pact is expected to be signed next year before the kick-off of the elections.

The event came few days after members of the committee held a meeting in Minna, Niger State capital, where Abdulsalam disclosed that his committee would once again require top political leaders to sign an accord to maintain peace ahead of the 2023 general elections.

In other words, the peace pact should not only be limited to political parties and their candidates but to extend it to other critical stakeholders and institutions in the country who have major roles to play during and after the election.

As already being witnessed from the frenzy and charged environment occasioned by disenchantments among citizens across the country, for those following Nigeria’s political development since the inception of the Fourth Republic in 1999, the ongoing mass movement mainly organized by Nigerian youths and enjoyed by the Labour Party, sends a strong signal that election could be one that might set the country in the right path or one to mar it.

This is the first time since 1999 that three political parties will be going into a presidential election neck to neck, leaving political pundits befulldled as to where the pendulum will swing.

That the signing ceremony was attended by eminent Nigerians like the Sultan of Sokoto, Sa’ad Abubakar the II; Nigerian Business Moguls, Femi Otedola, Aliko Dangote, and Sam Amuka, John Cardinal Onayekan, Professor Ibrahim Gambari, and President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Prescilla Kuye, among others, leaves the impression that leaders in the country are not only weary of what might become the country before or after the elections, they have also sensed the dangers lurked in the atmosphere.

It is the first peace accord signing ceremony that had the presidential candidates and the party chairmen of the 18 political parties in Nigeria appending their signatures to the document entitled “2022 national peace accord on the prevention of violence and the promotion of issue-focused campaign by presidential candidates and chairpersons of political parties contesting the 2023 general.”

The Chairman of the Nigeria Peace Committee, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, said the essence of signing the peace accord is to commit all presidential candidates, political parties, and their spokespersons to focus on national developmental issues rather than insults and violence.

He also identified fake news and misinformation as one issue of major concern ahead of the 2023 election, saying the spread of fake news has “shifted focus away from issue-based campaigns and created the platform for political parties to resort in name-calling and character assassination.”

According to him, the pre-election accords have “contributed significantly to mitigating the violent conflicts of these elections.”

General Abubakar said the candidates and political parties would sign a second peace accord in January, 2023 before Nigerians go to the polls.

The document upholds that under the auspices of the national peace committee, the candidates and political parties commit to conducting campaigns focused on policy issues and promoting their party manifesto, ensuring their spokespersons and members refrain from bribery, extortion, and violence and abide by the rule of law.

The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, on his part, reminded politicians and political parties of the provisions of the law on campaigns which are to start 150 days before polling day and end on the eve of the day when citizens are to cast their votes

Yakubu, who also witnessed the event, in his goodwill message pointed out that, in line with the provisions of the Electoral Act 2022 and in the Commission’s determination to play the role of a regulator, it will vigorously monitor compliance to ensure that parties shun abusive, intemperate or slanderous language as well as insinuations or innuendoes likely to provoke a breach of the peace during the electioneering campaigns.

He also noted that the Commission will also closely monitor compliance with the limits on campaign spending under the Electoral Act.

“Political parties and candidates should study and familiarise themselves with the electoral legal framework to avoid any infraction of the law and the unhappy consequences that will follow any act of misdemeanour”.

While the effort of the Abdulsalam-led peace committee has been widely commended over the years for what it has achieved, there are suggestions by political watchers that the commitment to peaceful and issue-based campaigns should resonate beyond parties’ chairmen and presidential candidates.

The call followed experiences and incidents in the past where people simply signed the Peace Accord but failed to abide by its letter and spirit. The argument is that in spite of the efforts put together since 2015, only little has been achieved and only on the surface.

For example, the National Human Rights Commission reported that in 2015 a total of 61 incidences of election violence in 22 states in which at least 58 people were killed in different parts of the six geopolitical zones in Nigeria. Perhaps because the situation did not improve, the peace committee became more specific four years later.

Recently elections conducted in the country have shown an upsurge in the number of electoral violence and killings since 2015 as a result of non adherence and lack of genuine commitment on the side of political actors and critical stakeholders, including the judiciary which have also been indicted through several conflicting rulings.

Similarly, an estimated 626 persons were killed across Nigeria in the six months between the start of the election campaign and the commencement of the general and supplementary elections, the Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room has said.

The report which was contained in its final report on the 2019 general election, the group said the number increased compared to the 106 killed in the 2015 general elections.

The organisation in its report on the elections listed the numbers of deaths per the six geopolitical zones in the country.

“Situation Room is deeply worried about the spike in politically motivated killings in the period leading up to the elections. At least, 626 people were said to have been killed between the start of the campaign in October 2018 and the final election in March 2019”, the coalition observer group said.

A former Director General of the Nigerian Television Authority, Dr Tony Iredia, is one of those who believe that the politicians have refused to adhere to the agreement they signed, citing cases in some states elections.

His words: “A good example that Nigerian political parties perceive the peace accords as mere rituals which they would never follow is the case of Kogi state where some unknown persons in 2019 barred the SDP candidate from entrying into the hall in Lokoja where the peace accord was to be signed. Is it politicians who can bar an opponent from the venue of the signing of a peace accord that would in all sincerity respect the so-called accord?

“Whether or not the peace accords have continued to be observed in the breach or whether the situation has improved can best be understood from events of the last few months in which governorship elections were held in Ekiti and Osun states respectively.  In Ekiti state as many as five of the 16 parties shunned the peace accord signing ceremony”, he said.

Iredia said the reasons, according to media reports, are not connected with several violent clashes between rival political parties that made some of the parties and even voters to lose faith along the line.

The veteran journalist also cited post elections crisis caused by corrupt judges who grant wrong judgements, suggesting that the judiciary should also be signatory to the Peace Accord to limit the level of election violence that could ensue through wrong dispensation of justice. 

He further suggested the need for INEC and its key officials to be part of the process to make all relevant stakeholders accountable.

According to him: “Apart from what we see during the settlement of election disputes especially courts that wrongly grant injunctions and assume jurisdiction, there is plenty of evidence that the judiciary contributes greatly to political violence in the country. Here, it is hard to forget the revelation by a retired Justice of the Supreme Court, Justice Stanley Shenko Alagoa, that “some judges collect bribe from politicians and traditional rulers to pervert the course of justice.

“Considering that using the judiciary to win elections subsists in Nigeria, it is time to invite the relevant heads of courts to sign our famous peace accords committing themselves and their teams to ensuring peace through proper dispensation of justice.

“It is similarly in order to invite relevant INEC bosses to commit themselves and their colleagues to end insider abuses in the electoral body which always provoke violence. If we are not prepared to go the whole hog, our peace accords would remain mere rituals notwithstanding that those who conceived the noble idea are transparently people of honour”.

The 2023 general elections will no doubt be keenly contested as three political parties, including the ruling APC, the PDP and Labour Party, justle for the next Aso Rock occupant.

There are several factors that will influence the elections. The first lies in the hands of INEC in the manner in which the election will be conducted.

INEC has promised at different fora that it was ready for the general elections.

The Commission said it has learnt lessons from the recently conducted Ekiti and Osun states governorship election, while promising to be at its best during the polls in the first quarter of 2023.

If INEC can put its acts right like it has promised, the country may record little or no violence, even if it is difficult to have an election without a trace of violence.