₦airaland Forum

This has been on my mind for decades. I wrote the post in 2019. This particular thread reminds me of number 4.

naptu2:


Nigerians keep bouncing back and forth


1) Government limits the number of political parties to two, or, much later, government prescribes stringent conditions that political associations must adhere to before they can be registered as political parties (you must have an office in every state capital, etc.)


Nigerians: This is undemocratic and unconstitutional. You cannot limit the number of political parties. The constitution guarantees freedom of association. Government is trying to prevent people that it doesn't like from creating political parties.

Gani took INEC to court and won.

********************

So INEC registers all the political associations as political parties. We have 90 political parties and 70 presidential candidates. There are 200 more associations waiting to be registered as political parties.


Nigerians: This is a joke! How can we have so many presidential candidates? What is INEC doing? They need to deregister some of these mushroom parties! It is a deliberate ploy by the government to divide votes!

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2)

Nigerians: We cannot have politicians going to the polling booths with their police and military escorts. They will intimidate voters and election officials. Their security escorts will compromise the security officials on election duty.


Inspector general of police and chief of defence staff: No uniformed security official should follow any politician to the polling unit. We shall withdraw most of the police and military guards of politicians 24 hours before the election, to ensure that politicians cannot use them to affect the conduct of the election.


Nigerians: The government has withdrawn the security guards of governor ***** because they want to attack him during the election. Hold the federal government responsible if anything happens to governor *****. How can you withdraw a whole governor's security. That tells you that they want to rig the election.

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3)

Nigerians: We need to do away with moneybag politicians. Moneybag politicians destroyed our democracy in the first and second republics. They become godfathers, determine what happens in the party and the people will have no say.


Babangida: Government will provide subventions to political parties to ensure that they are not dependent on any moneybag politicians.


Nigerians: If government provides subventions to the parties, then that means that the parties are no longer independent organisations. It means that they are now arms (slaves) of the government and dependent on government and will do whatever government wants.


Nigerians: Some people go into politics solely to get government subventions and not to serve the people.

INEC: We will limit government subventions to political parties that have won at least one election.


Nigerians: That means you are supporting strong parties against weak parties.

Also Nigerians: You are wasting tax payers' money. These politicians only create political parties in order to steal government subventions.

INEC: We will stop giving subventions.

Nigerians: Parties that control federal/state governments have an advantage because they have access to government funds. Why doesn't the government help smaller parties?

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4)

Nigerians Why are our elections so militarised. There are armed policemen at every polling unit. This could scare voters away. You don't have armed policemen at polling units in the US and UK.


The electoral act is amended to ban armed security agents from being within a certain distance from polling units.

Heavily armed thugs attack polling units and the policemen at the polling units can't do anything because they are unarmed.

Nigerians: The politicians did this deliberately. They posted unarmed officers to the polling units so that their thugs can easily disrupt the process.

Summary of my many previous posts.

1) Human rights lawyers, civil society groups, journalists, etc complained that our elections were being militarised. They said that the government deployed armed policemen to polling units in order to intimidate voters and that the government should stop deploying armed men to polling units.

2) The National Assembly passed a law to ban anyone from having offensive weapons withing 300 metres of a polling unit.

3) The police obeyed and created a new security system in which there will be unarmed policemen at the polling unit and armed policemen (usually in patrol vans) some distance from the polling unit.

4) The police obey the law, but do thugs obey the law? What can an unarmed policeman do against an armed thug that attacks a polling unit?

5) The people (who were the ones that complained about armed policemen being at the polling units) complain that policemen do nothing when armed thugs attack polling units. What do you want an unarmed policeman to do??

That (above) is the Nigerian pendulum.

naptu2:
Electoral Act 2022

1 & 2) You can see that, by law, the police are to be given a copy of the results. The Inspector General of Police was at the collation centre yesterday. I wonder if he plans to personally collect the result. He has usually been represented in the past.

3) Aha! I have found the distance. Nobody is allowed to have an offensive weapon within 300 metres of the polling unit. What the police have done, in order to comply with the law, is to have unarmed policemen at the polling unit and then have a patrol vehicle with armed policemen just beyond 300 metres from the polling unit.

4) For those that were asking on Twitter yesterday why the policemen at the polling unit did not have batons, teargas, etc. here's your answer. You can see the definition of offensive weapon in the 4th screenshot below.

Remember, the restriction on offensive weapons came about because citizens, human rights lawyers, NGOs, etc accused the government/politicians of deploying armed policemen to polling centres to intimidate voters. Some even said that the idea of having armed officers at the polling unit came from military rule. So it is not the police's fault.

https://placng.org/i/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Electoral-Act-2022.pdf

Nigeria Police Force @PoliceNG

2023 GENERAL ELECTIONS: USE OF DOGS, OTHER PETS AT POLLING UNITS CRIMINAL, CONDEMNABLE - NPF

The Nigeria Police Force has deemed it necessary to educate and caution Nigerians on the use of pets, especially, dogs, at the polling units on election day, as such act runs contrary to the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022, as amended.

The provision of Section 126 (1) of the Electoral Act. 2022, explains clearly those actions exhibited by electorates that constitute electoral breaches and are punishable under the law, and paragraph (f) mentions possession of weapons calculated to intimidate voters and electoral officers. Dogs could be classed as offensive weapons as their owners/handlers can use them to intimidate, harass and cause assault and bodily harm to others.

The Dogs Act, CAP 55 Laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1958 as domesticated in various States, and other Criminal Laws in Nigeria are trite.

The conceived ideas and plans by certain individuals, electorates, and groups of people to go to the polls accompanied by pets are unacceptable, stand discouraged, and remain an act of electoral infraction as it will cause harassment and intimidation.

The Nigeria Police Force, therefore, warns those who intend to display their pets, dogs specifically, for whatever purpose, at the polling units, to desist as such constitutes a violation of the electoral Act, 2022, as amended, and other extant laws.

CSP OLUMUYIWA ADEJOBI, mnipr, mipra,
FORCE PUBLIC RELATIONS OFFICER,
FORCE HEADQUARTERS,
ABUJA.

7th March, 2023

https://twitter.com/PoliceNG/status/1633116402688184321

It all began with this Twitter Spaces.

This exactly sounds like terrorists who want to take over Lagos....smh pic.twitter.com/xfXjGibgnN

— Souljah (@jeffphilips1) March 6, 2023

Reactions.

Dr Awojide created a Twitter spaces to preach against online and offline bullying, intimidation and violence and actress Toyin Abraham talked about how she has been bullied because of her choice of candidate.

https://twitter.com/Magiclammy_/status/1633015492356059139

Ogbeni Dipo has also been the victim of bullying. For many years people wrote to his former employers to demand that he should be sacked. He recently changed jobs and people started a rumour that he was sacked because of sexual harassment. He subsequently posted letters from his former and current employers to prove that the claim was false.

The third screenshot shows NDGOONER26's profile.

Even more.

More.

Famous Twitter user and personal development expert Dr Dipo Awojide (aka Ogbeni Dipo) reacted to a Twitter spaces audio recording in which some people threatened to send traditional rulers and other people out of Lagos after the governorship elections (

This exactly sounds like terrorists who want to take over Lagos....smh pic.twitter.com/xfXjGibgnN

— Souljah (@jeffphilips1) March 6, 2023

). He preached peace and tolerance and this led to a discussion about the Lagos State governorship election.

During that discussion, someone asked Dipo, "Who gave the order" and Dipo replied with the chain of command of the Nigerian Army (president → chief of defence staff → chief of army staff, etc). Then a Twitter user, @NDGOONER26, threatened to kill Dipo if he sees him in Birmingham (Dr Dipo Awojide is a lecturer in the UK). Some other Twitter users immediately notified the Metropolitan Police and other police forces in the UK and @NDGOONER26 subsequently locked his Twitter account.

The Metropolitan Police has started investigating the matter.