Chief Mrs. Bridget Osakwe is the national network coordinator for the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP) in Nigeria; in this interview she tells SULEIMAN IDRIS how internal democracy in political parties is the sine qua non for violence-free elections in Nigeria.
What are NGOs doing to assist in ensuring the conduct of violence-free polls in Nigeria?
We are starting with conflict prevention in elections and we do this through our early warning system where we monitor issues of conflicts, hate speech, violence and intentional damage either physically or physiologically. We monitor those hate and disparaging speeches and everything that can translate into violence.
Our community monitors are all over Nigeria; they have indicators used in monitoring these activities and anything that can incite or translate into violence. We analyse them on a weekly basis, highlight them, make policy recommendations, and draw the attention of relevant stakeholders on possible options.
What if we have a repeated incident?
Where there is a repetition or there is a trend in a particular issue, for instance, we do a situation tracking. If, for instance, we found out that women are continually being marginalised or discriminated that can lead to violence in the upcoming campaign processes that are upcoming, we begin to track the situation and get more details of how that could transform, and that situation tracking we make very short for policy recommendation and policy makers to be able read and understand and to be able to act on it very fast.
How do you address political parties on the need for violence-free elections, especially in 2023?
Soon, we will be working with sister organisations to look at internal democracies in political parties. Because though elections are in 2023, the primaries are in 2022 and primaries decide who wins the elections. And so these primaries are even more violence most times than the real elections. So, the real issues of violence are gearing up and then we are witnessing the upsurge of comments that can incite violence.
Violence also occurs after elections?
We have noticed that violence also comes after elections in the country. Past elections held in the current political dispensation showed that we had a crisis in Kaduna after elections. So, the violence that comes after elections at times can be very serious mostly when there are disputed issues. This is the reason we have to do a lot of education and sensitisation prior to these elections.
What should we do now to forestall future occurrences?
From us, before and during the elections, we do engagements; we talk to people about how to douse the tension, to manage the situation against the foreseen or likelihood of violence. For instance, in Anambra, immediately after the elections, we had to talk to people, relevant stakeholders because Andy Uba wanted to go to court; that is his right anyway, but we need to have some kind of civil procedures and management of followers in the way we express and exercise our rights.
Are politicians targetting the youth and women?
We will pay particular attention to the youth and women as well those living with disabilities.
What early signs have noticed that signpost violence?
This is where I think the media comes in having the capacity to manage the kinds of emotions and utterances of politicians, political parties and their followers. I do know that it is bad news that made headlines, but we must realise that our country is in a volatile situation that if the bad news is not well managed it might do more harm than what we currently have at hand.
What does the current political squabble within the APC portend for the country?
For me these crises are expected because of the party’s coming convention. All those hassles and political shenanigans will definitely manifest and after the convention they will begin to settle out all their differences. Politics in Nigeria, if you excuse my words, is very dirty and until we get more mature it will remain dirty and it involves both financial and physical fights.
How do you intend to engage the youth?
I like the role IYAGA is playing by talking to the youths not to allow politicians to use them to achieve political ambitions. Though we do know that it is not every youth they will reach, they are trying their best to reach the larger populations and at the same time they are campaigning for youth people to be involved in politics and governance. But again, unfortunately, the kind of young people coming in is another thing. We see the questions people are raising around youth in positions of authorities today, some of whom are even governors.
What that leads us to ask is that is it the age that performs or what? We are saying the old politicians are not doing well, but the young are not showing they are better either. However, that doesn’t mean the young people should not occupy those political spaces; we have to be intentional in selecting who represents us.
What particular part of the country do you think the authorities should pay attention to?
The whole country is aflame now. Apart from political violence, we are already in a dire security situation. When you put the indicators of war in Nigeria, we are in full blown war from indicators. It was predicted that by 2015, Nigeria would have collapsed; it was true. But now we are re-defining and re-calibrating the indicators of war using the Nigeria experience.
Religious people have said that it is God that sustains this country, the prayers we offer in the churches and mosques are responsible for the relative peace we still have in the country. I am catholic; everyday we recite prayers for peace in Nigeria. Another school of thought says that we are a happy people, which is why we are still where we are.
There was a report years back that said we are the happiest people on earth. What that does for us is that we are easily content. We see how our comedians make jokes out of serious situations, people laugh over them; these are serious issues that are supposed to be depressing to other countries, but Nigerians make jokes out of them and we move on. Maybe those are the things that are sustaining this country.
The North is likely to have increased intensity in security issues because they do have those issues and we do know that elections exacerbate and fuel the crisis. So, the increase is likely to increase in those places where conflicts are already high.
Then the issues of zoning will also play a significant part in the conflict situation. We are seeing the current zoning arrangement by the ruling party, the chairmanship position is a problem to them and it is going to create a lot of challenges.
Why do you think the security challenges persist?
Our security challenges are not homogenous; the challenges in the North-east are different from what is happening in the North-west, and again there are internal issues. For example, those who put their fate in the APC or in the person of the current president in the last election, some of them have started having a change of mind and using wrong and alternative languages at this time. All these divides and polarisations have started and don’t forget that during elections religions also come to play and on one side the women are also being relegated.
What will you advise women to do?
I am happy that one woman has declared her intention to run for president, but beyond that I feel we should increase the number of women in elective positions. This is because with the violence associated with politics, our women, starting from me, are not interested in politics, and so when you see such a lack of interest. This means we will continue to have a lower rate of interest by women in politics.
The best way to achieve headway in that regard is to have internal party democracy. A country like Senegal has a parity law that stipulates the number of women each party must present from their primaries. So, intentionally even the godfathers of the parties will have no choice but to work toward that.
Rwanda has a higher percentage. So, we can do that as well and rise gradually. It doesn’t have to be at once and I am of the personal opinion that our democracy will be more strengthened and much stronger if we have more women in elective positions.
