More than 160 people were killed in election-related violence between January and the April polls, the European Election Observation Mission (EOM) said yesterday.

It decried what it called high cost of nomination forms, lack of internal democracy and adoption of zoning by parties, noting that negative tactics overshadowed issues during the campaign.

The group accused Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) and Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) of giving former President Goodluck Jonathan and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) an edge over their opponents.

It decried the passiveness of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) in calling NTA and FRCN to order.

These are contained in the Final Report of the EOM exclusively obtained from the European Union (EU) yesterday by The Nation.

The report said: “The campaign environment was extremely competitive and tense. Incidents were reported in all parts of the country resulting in more than 160 people killed in election-related violence since early January.

“Campaigning for the federal and state level elections took place concurrently, with large-scale rallies conducted during the first phase (before postponement) and meetings with traditional, religious and youth leaders in the second phase (after postponement).

“Issue-based campaigning was overshadowed by negative tactics, with increasing use of inflammatory language, hate speech and religious, ethnic and sectional sentiments and appeals.

“Violations of campaign regulations were reported in all parts of the country with both PDP and All Progressives Congress (APC) representatives and candidates seen to misuse incumbency at federal and state levels.

“Mechanisms for monitoring and sanctioning non-compliance were de facto non-existent and violations remained unaddressed throughout the whole campaign period.”

On the conduct of primaries, the EOM faulted high cost of nomination forms and the adoption of zoning formula by some parties.

It added: “Candidacy is also de facto overly-restricted by parties requiring aspirants to pay a non-refundable fee that for the two main parties went up to N27 million (approximately €134,000), leaving the possibility to stand beyond the reach of the vast majority of citizens.

“Zoning, whereby elected positions rotate between different geographical areas within a constituency, is often applied, which de facto excludes aspirants from other localities. Various implementation problems were widely reported and also observed by EU experts, including arbitrary rejections during ‘screening’, corrupted election processes, and voting procedures that lack transparency and certainty.

“Also parallel primaries reportedly took place and parties did not always respect the results of their own primaries.”

The report said up to 100,000 Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) were not produced up till the eve of the March 28 presidential election.

It said: “Positively, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) attempted to improve the integrity of voter registration and identification by introducing biometric measures.

“INEC reports registering 68.8 million voters, an estimated 78% of the total voting age population, with approximately 82% of registrants’ PVCs being collected. However in 11 states, over 92% PVC collection was reported, which is implausible given that the deceased have not been removed from the list since 2010.

“Regrettably, up to 100,000 PVCs, which are necessary for voting, remained un-produced one day before the 28 March election day.

“While the introduction of PVCs and card readers has been effective in increasing the reliability of the voter register and reducing opportunity for fraud, their impact has been limited by the seemingly poor quality of biometric data capture and subsequently weak finger-print recognition rate during polling. As of yet, there does not appear to be a plan for maintaining the voter register.”

On the NTA and FRCN, which it accused of bias, it said EOM monitoring results of the government-owned NTA and FRCN, the two leading media networks with the widest coverage, showed that both provided extensive exposure to the PDP and its officials (the President and Federal Government).

“On NTA news, coverage of PDP and its officials totalled 84%, which contrasted with APC’s 11%. A similar pattern was identified in FRCN’s news, and in NTA’s editorial programmes. More extreme uneven coverage was identified in some state-controlled radio stations, with over 95% of airtime allocated to incumbent governors seeking re-election.

“Thus federal and state government-controlled media gave incumbents clear advantage over their opponents.

“This, along with passiveness of the media regulator, NBC, to challenge such bias and effectively regulate the broadcast media, is not fully consistent with the regulatory framework for the elections or international standards requiring the state controlled media to ensure fair and equitable access by contesting parties. Positively, some private media provided overall balanced and fair coverage of key contesting parties.”

On the nation’s electoral legal framework, the EOM said nothing has changed, adding:

“Despite various legal reform initiatives since the 2011 elections, the legal framework has not changed except for the passing of the Freedom of Information Act in May 2011. “Therefore, a number of fundamental shortcomings are still to be addressed, with the legislative framework not fully in line with universal and regional standards for elections committed to by Nigeria.

“These include, inter alia, the lack of provision for independent candidacy, insufficient campaign finance regulations, an absence of provisions empowering INEC to sanction campaign violations, weak transparency requirements for the publication of results, and voters and civil society organisations unable to file petitions against the results.”

http://thenationonlineng.net/160-killed-in-election-related-violence-say-european-monitors/

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