The Organised Labour under the umbrella of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, in Abuja, condemned the role of the military in the February 23 and the March 9 general elections in Nigeria, admonishing that there is no alternative to democratic governance.
NLC Acting President, Amechi Asugwuni, in Abuja noted that despite the fears expressed by Nigerians in relation to the deployment of the military during elections, the Federal Government of APC still proceeded to deploy soldiers under the guise that they would prevent the snatching of ballot boxes, destruction of voting materials and arrest any threat of violence. The Organised Labour protested that the conduct of some soldiers deployed in some parts of the country to maintain public order left a lot to be desired.
The NLC noted that contrary to the judgements of Federal High Courts in Sokoto and Lagos which were later upheld by the Court of Appeal in the legal suit – “Yussuf vs Obasanjo” – which stated that the job of maintaining security during elections primarily resides with the police, certain APC leaders mobilised some military personnel who went outside their duty call to invade polling units and collation centres, and intimidate election officials in manners that were in violation of the country’s laws and scared many voters from exercising their franchise.
The NLC maintained that the deployment of military personnel to harass political rivals was a new low in the nation’s electoral history and presented a serious setback to recent electoral reform gains. The Congress, therefore, demanded the military high command to investigate the infractions and bring the culprits to book as a deterrence to others.
The Congress was of the view that there is need for serious national conversations on critical areas of improvement in the conduct of elections in Nigeria. The NLC called for a sincere revisit of the Justice Mohammed Uwais electoral reform report, especially, as it relates to reinforcing INEC’s independence, unbundling of INEC and setup of elections offense commission. NLC further demanded President Muhammadu Buhari to show commitment to implementing aspects of Uwais report which relevance is validated by recent developments in the electoral space.
The NLC leadership cautioned the INEC over the need to ensure free, fair, and credible elections in the states where governorship elections were declared inconclusive, which the commission has rescheduled to hold on 23rd March 2019.