Political stakeholders said continued proper education among Nigerian youths and quick solution to pervasive hunger in the country, might help to address political violence ahead of the 2023 general elections.

The stakeholders, who said this in Benin, advocated sustained intensive enlightenment of the public on the ills of political violence and the need to further reform the Electoral Act.

There are two dimensions to political violence in Nigeria, according to APC’s assistant secretary in Edo, Victor Osheobo.

“One is sponsored by politicians while the other involves the youth willingly engaging in violence to extort political actors,” he stated.

Mr Osheobo noted that some politicians out of desperation paid thugs to disrupt electoral processes not going in their favour.

“We have sponsored violence by politicians who are desperate for power. They use violent means to entrench themselves to become candidates. As a result, in the primaries, they deploy violence to actualise their purpose,” he stated further. “After the primaries, they carry the violence into the general election proper by recruiting youths, arming them, paying them pittance, housing them and giving them the erroneous impression that when they get into power, they will follow them to wherever they are going. Of course, those are lies.”

He also pointed out that there “is the other type of political violence that youths engage in: extorting politicians.” 

“They also make themselves available for anybody who is willing to pay, to engage in stealing of ballot boxes, disrupting the electoral process, going to key opponents and all that,” he said.

Similarly, APC secretary in Edo, Lawrence Okah, noted that violence should no longer be part of the electoral  process after many years of the nation’s democratic development.

Political activist Louisa Eikhomun-Agbonkhese, founder of Echos of Women in Africa, said there was urgent need for reform in the social and political systems to prevent occurrence of violence during elections.

(NAN)