Mr Hamza Aliyu, the Executive Director, Initiative for Grassroots Advancement, has called on political parties fielding candidates for Nov. 16 governorship election in Kogi to shun hate speech and focus campaigns on critical issues of governance.
Aliyu, who made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Saturday in Lokoja, said that the fear of possible violence in the election expressed by INEC as well as the electorate was not misplaced.
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The director regretted that elections in the state and the country had continued to be marred by violence because the parties, apart from lacking in ideology, engaged in campaigns of calumny rather than critical issues.
“Maybe as a result of the fact that many of the perpetrators of violence in previous elections have not been prosecuted, arrested or sanctioned to serve as a deterrent, more parties are getting involved in it.
“If you look at the history of our elections, they have often been marked by one form of violence or the other.
“Most times this violence is what stops people from participating in elections, especially, women, the aged and People Living With Disabilities.
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“Politicians do not appear to have learnt anything. After the previous elections they still see violent acts like ballot box snatching, shootings, disorderly conduct and other forms of malpractices as a way of winning elections and we have seen this repeated in every electoral cycle.
“The people want good infrastructure, good roads, health, education, good governance but we don’t hear this in campaigns.
“What we hear are campaigns of calumny, hate speeches, bring him down. That person is not good because he has a big head or that the other has small leg. We do not have issue-based campaigns,’’ he said.
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He, however, charged security agencies to avoid complacency but endeavour to arrest and prosecute electoral law offenders since the electoral umpire, INEC, lacked the power to arrest and prosecute offenders.
Aliyu called on security agencies in the country to allay the fears of election observers by ensuring that the Kogi and Bayelsa polls are fair, credible and free.
