How Insecurity Is A Threat To 2023 General Election

With barely six months until the 2023 general election, there is growing apprehension that insecurity across the country may jeopardize the peaceful conduct of the election though the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC), has promised to go ahead with the preparation for the polls.

 The security challenge that confronted the country at the twilight of former President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2007 was restricted mainly to North-east of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states where members https://gwg.ng/2022/08/15/el-rufai-mocks-as-obidient-nigerians-set-stage-for-kaduna-march/of Islamic sect, Boko Haram terrorized the people.

But today, Nigeria is facing a multi-dimensional security challenges across the six geo-political zones of the country that may overwhelm the country. Today, even security agents  are victims of terrorist attack as several military men and Police were ambushed and killed by unidentified gunmen.  

There appears to be no day in Nigeria where reports of kidnapping, maiming and killing of innocent people by suspected bandits does not appear in the media.

There was apprehension on Tuesday in Imo State  when the  Inspector  General of Police, (IGP),  Usman Alkali Baba was at the Government House, Owerri  to inaugurate the 12 Armoured Personnel Carriers procured by the state government to fight banditry in the state when  gunmen invaded Ogbaku market on Owerri- Onitsha road  and shot a motorcyclist dead.

 Nigerians would not forget in a hurry how more than 30 worshippers were massacred in Owo Catholic Church in the month of June this year.

The federal Government linked those behind the mayhem to members of Islamic State in West Africa Province, (ISWAP).  This happened when many train passengers of the Abuja-Kaduna route kidnapped several months ago were still held captive by gunmen, even those who were lucky to have regained their freedom paid a huge sum of money as ransom. 

That’s why it may not be completely out of place for those canvassing for the shifting of the general election in 2023 in view of the raging insecurity in the country.

For example, eminent lawyer and founder of Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti (ABUAD), Chief Afe Babalola (SAN), recently called for a hold on the planned general elections in the country.

In his well-publicised essay the legal luminary enjoined the Federal Government to suspend the 2023 elections and in its place set up a six-month interim government after President Buhari’s tenure. 

Apart from Babalola, Roberts Clarke, (SAN), an elder statesman, a couple of months ago, also called for the extension of President Buhari’s tenure for six months saying that the current situation in the country is not conducive enough to conduct a fresh election next year.

According to Clarke, “If the situation in which we are in now continues and it is impossible to vote in the 2023 election, the Constitution says the President will inform the INEC.

“In view of all insurgencies, kidnappings, Boko Haram, I don’t think in these different areas of Nigeria, we can have a good election”.

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