The Inspector General of Police IGP Alkali Usman Baba Thursday appealed to the leadership of all political parties to be determined to show the right leadership virtues and publicly dissociate themselves from acts of political brigandage and violence which according to him is the only way to reassure citizens and the international community of the nation’s commitment to a peaceful 2023 General Elections.
IGP made the appeal at an emergency meeting between the Nigeria Police Force and strategic leaders across national security and intelligence agencies and the leadership of all the eighteen (18) registered political parties held at the Force Headquarters, Abuja.
Usman Baba said, most of the recorded violent incidents or threats often result from political extremism, misinformation, intolerance, wrong political orientation, hate speeches, incitement, and, most importantly, the desperation of strategic actors within the political field who often place their parochial political ambitions over and above national security interests and the nation’s stable democratic order.
He noted that such actors, usually give a wrong direction to their party faithful, arm them, re-orient them and encourage them to resort to the use of threat, violence, and other extra-legal means to frustrate competing political parties and impose their own faulty perception of politicking.
Police IG also lamented that the last form of political violence related to the conduct of some State Governors who manifest traits of political intolerance which often inflame political tension.
"In this regard, we have been receiving reports of some State Governors who encourage political thugs and sub-national security outfits under their control to disrupt seamless and statutorily guaranteed campaign activities of parties or candidates with whom they hold opposing political views.
"In so doing, they deploy their powers and influences to either prevent the mounting of campaign bill boards or pull them down, while also denying political opponents of spaces to undertake their campaigns or peaceful political congregations in contravention of the provisions of the Electoral Act 2022 (As amended)."he stressed.
The Police Inspector General of Police pointed out that the leadership of each political party is critical in eradicating the menace of political intolerance, threat, violence and other negative tendencies in our democratic culture.
This is because they are the strategic gatekeepers to our democracy whose conducts or misconducts do have a reverberating effect on the actions of their followers as well as on the national political space.
Baba therefore appealed to the Independent National Electoral Commission to, in cognisance of their critical regulatory, enforcement and supervisory roles as enshrined in the Electoral Act 2022, assert their statutory powers, and scale up their compliance actions towards complementing the Nigeria Police and other law enforcement agencies in checkmating the threats being poised to our democratic order by actors within the political system.
In attendance were Chairmen and representatives of seventeen (17) registered political parties in Nigeria; the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) who was represented by Mrs. May Agbamuche-Mbu; Director-General, National Intelligence Agency, Mr. Ahmed Rufai Abubakar; Chief of Defence Intelligence, Maj. Gen. SA Adebayo; Director-General Department of State Services represented by Director of Operations, Mr. Joseph Dashwip.
Other attendees were the representatives of the Comptroller-General of Customs, Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps, Commandant General of Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, Comptroller-General of Nigeria Immigration Service, Controller-General of Nigerian Correctional Service and members of the Force Management Team.
