The Nigerian elections in 2019 that brought President Muhammadu
Buhari back into office for a second term were marred by political
violence, some of it by soldiers and police officers, Human Rights Watch
(HRW) said on Monday.
Buhari defeated Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the keenly-contested poll.
HRW called on Buhari to take concrete steps to address the widespread
political violence and ensure accountability for human rights abuses by
soldiers and police as he begins his second term.
The report on the election released on the HRW website on Monday
noted that the election period included persistent attacks by factions
of Boko Haram terrorist group in the northeast; increased communal
violence between nomadic herdsmen and farmers spreading southward from
north-central states; and a dramatic uptick in banditry, kidnapping, and
killings in the northwestern states of Kaduna, Katsina, and Zamfara. It
maintained that security forces have failed to respond effectively to
threats to people’s lives and security.
Human Rights Watch said it interviewed 32 people; including voters,
journalists, election observers, activists, and Independent National
Electoral Commission officials in Rivers and Kano states, and documented
11 deaths specifically related to violent interference in the election
process during the February 23 presidential election and subsequent
state elections.
It added: “The national and state elections in February, March, and
April 2019 contributed to the general insecurity across the country. The
politically related violence reported in many states was in contrast to
the relatively peaceful 2015 elections that brought Buhari into his
first term in office. According to a report by SBM Intelligence, which
monitors sociopolitical and economic developments in Nigeria, 626 people
were killed during the 2019 election cycle, starting with campaigns in
2018.
“Kano state, in northwestern Nigeria, has the highest number of
registered voters in the country. Rivers state, in the Niger Delta,
receives the largest share of crude-oil-based national revenue,
representing significant electoral value to any political party. The
history of elections in both states is replete with violence by state
security agencies and criminal elements.
“Human Rights Watch focused its research on both states in view of
projections and reports of violence during the 2019 elections. Despite
police claims of increased security measures to ensure peaceful voting,
there seems to have been little or no police response to reports of
threats and acts of violence by hired political thugs and soldiers
against voters and election officials, Human Rights Watch found.
“Voters and election officials said that policemen either fled or
stood idly by, fueling allegations of complicity, as perpetrators stole
election materials, disrupted voting, and harassed voters. Witnesses
said that the police also shot live rounds of ammunition and used
teargas to disperse people protesting voting disruptions.
“Witnesses said that after a soldier was killed in the town of
Abonnema, in Rivers state, on election day, soldiers shot at residents,
killing an unknown number of people. They also carried out sweeping
arrests and arbitrarily detained several people.”
“The soldiers were on a rampage, shooting at anyone around,” said a
37-year-old man who witnessed the episode. “As I made my way to flee, I
saw people dive into the river, many with gunshot wounds. The next day I
saw three dead bodies riddled with bullets floating in the water… I
heard many more bodies were later recovered from that river.”
HRW noted that “Banditry and the recurring cycles of deadly violence
between herdsmen and farmers appear to have taken the lives of
thousands. According to civil society reports, over 3,641 people have
died from deadly clashes between herdsmen and farmers since 2015 and at
least 262 people have been killed by bandits since the beginning of 2019
in Zamfara State alone. The government deployed 1,000 military troops
to the state in response, but few of those responsible for the violence
have been arrested or held to account.
“The northeast conflict with Boko Haram and its splinter groups also
remains one of Buhari’s pressing challenges. Although Boko Haram’s
territorial control has shrunk to small pockets of villages around Lake
Chad as a result of sustained government military action since 2015, the
group continues to carry out attacks against civilian and military
targets in the region and in neighboring Niger, Cameroon, and Chad.
“In recent months, renewed fighting between Nigerian government
forces and a faction of Boko Haram, known as Islamic State of West
Africa Province (ISWAP), has led to secondary displacement of civilians.
“Security forces have been implicated in serious abuses, including
arbitrary arrests, prolonged detention without trial, torture,
extrajudicial killings, rape and sexual violence against women and girls
in camps for displaced people. According to the United Nations Office
for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), more than 27,000
civilians have died and about 1.8 million people have been displaced
since the beginning of the conflict in 2009.
“Authorities have also failed to address impunity for killings by
security forces elsewhere in the country. The authorities have yet to
publish the report of the Presidential Judicial Panel set up in August
2017 to investigate the military’s compliance with human rights
obligations, allegations of war crimes, and other abuses by the
military.
“Nigerian voters have entrusted Buhari with another opportunity to
address the nation’s serious human rights problems, including political
violence,” Ewang said. “He should start by reforming the security forces
to ensure strict compliance with human rights standards, and prompt
investigation and prosecution of those credibly implicated in abuses.”
On the 2019 election violence, HRW said: “Nigeria’s elections have
historically been fraught with controversy, violence, and other abuses,
with the 2015 elections, widely believed to have been largely free of
violence, bucking this trend. There were reports of voter intimidation
and violence around the 2019 elections at both the federal and state
levels, including by armed men hired by candidates and political parties
and by security forces, including the national police.
“Bauchi, Benue, Kano, Sokoto, Plateau, and Rivers states were
particularly affected by violence during the March 9 gubernatorial
elections. The Independent National Electoral Commission canceled
elections in places where the elections were disrupted and held
supplementary elections later. Kano state had supplementary elections on
March 23, and Rivers state on April 13.
“Kano and Rivers states were probably the worst hit of the six
states. They were identified by both local and international analysts
ahead of the elections as holding great potential for electoral
violence. Both are major political strongholds for the two leading
political parties, Buhari’s ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and
the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP). Abdullahi Ganduje of the
APC won the 2019 election in Kano, and Nyesom Wike of the PDP won in
Rivers state.”