It’s election day, February 25, 2023. The normally busy streets of Nigeria’s economic Lagos, which were very busy the day before, are now filled with silence. Despite the heavy military presence, conducting stop-and-search, Adesola Ikulajolu, a domestic observer, is not worried. They must be looking forward to the elections in Nigeria because they will have to see the biggest democratic exercise in the history of Africa.
A total of 93.4 million registered voters will determine who will be the country’s next president as an opportunity for Nigeria’s democratic process “to send a message of proof of life to the world”.
For this crucial poll, the Nigerian government says it has deployed 425 106 security officers – the largest security operation during a presidential election in the country’s history. The operation was drawn from various security agencies in the country, including the army. However, the number of military personnel deployed for the election could not be determined.
“This election is too much military. In fact, I saw too much,” said Ikulajolu. “But because I’m used to meeting them (military members) in various previous elections, I’m not bothered. From Ikorodu to Ojota, there are no less than four army checkpoints and I am sure I can answer all their questions,” said the 25-year-old boy. He has been monitoring the country’s elections since 2019. So, he said, he knows the drill.
That would change when he reached a military checkpoint and his vehicle was removed for a routine inspection. It was nothing like what he had seen before. “Even if they ask for an identity card, which I show, and that’s it [Independent National Electoral Commission]-tag the accredited media on me, they still hold me and question me like I’m a suspect.
“One of them forced me to open my phone and delete some picture folders. They collected my ID card and also took photos before letting me go,” he said, recalling the moments that made me nervous in a phone conversation with Mail & Guardians.
This is not a one-off. Soldiers are accused of using brute force, including the invasion of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) gathering centers in various states to expel party agents, election observers and accredited journalists.
Because of this, analysts are quick to point out that the repeated militarization of the country’s elections clearly shows the reluctance to divorce the country’s fledgling democracy from the last strand of the long history of military rule, warning that this will continue to undermine its sanctity. the entire election process, there are violations of human rights and heightened voter apathy.
Nigerian elections are always characterized by voter apathy which has been attributed to several factors, including the over-militarization of the election process. In the last general election in 2019, the country had 82.3 million registered voters gathered by INEC. Of these, only 28.6 million voted in the election.
“The deployment of security at election time is always controversial because soldiers and police are not trusted to defend public interests over elite interests,” said Matthew Page, fellow in the Africa program at Chatham House. The large presence of security agencies is usually seen as a calculated strategy, said Page. For example, after the 2014 governorship election in Ekiti, prominent members of the main opposition parties were denied entry into the state capital by soldiers and other security agencies in a commando-style operation.
For good reason, Page added, “Nigerians generally view the police and military as predators, open to political manipulation, and tend to use heavy-handed tactics. Increased security during elections should prevent thugs and rigging, in most cases, it does not. This speaks volumes deeper challenges facing Nigeria’s security agencies: endemic corruption, unprofessionalism, lack of personnel and material, among others.
Apart from a few, the elections in Nigeria have been marred by killings, injuries and destruction, which explains the deployment of heavy security operatives, despite various pronouncements by the Nigerian courts that the deployment of soldiers, in particular, is illegal and unconstitutional. An appeals court condemned the illegal militarization of the 2014 Ekiti governorship election after voters were harassed by armed forces.
But in no way does it help fight the violent orgy that is now synonymous with elections in the country.
Fola Aina, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, believes the responsibility to ensure law and order, including during general elections, allows authorities to deploy the instruments of power they use. “There is a general understanding that the military is associated with draconian rules and, therefore, a significant part of society tends to regard them as such, even when providing security, but their deployment is essential to maintain the social contract that exists between the state and society.
“However, the state must be able to balance this responsibility in a way that does not undermine the sanctity of the electoral process.”
To achieve this requires an apparatus that insists on doing it with professionalism, said Aina.
Page offers a similar position. He stressed that the country must equip the police and other security agencies to manage internal security tasks: “Until the Nigerian elite develops, trains and invests in a professional police force, the military will continue to perform internal security tasks.”
The substitution, according to him, is problematic on many levels, and one of the main causes of insecurity in Nigeria.
“For example, using fighter jets as an internal policing tool. In countless other countries, the police do the policing. In Nigeria, fighter jets regularly bomb criminals and bandits, often killing civilians in the process.
“For Nigeria to develop as a democracy, its leaders must remove the military from the streets and replace them with police officers whose primary mission is to protect – not prey on – the public.”