The Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, Mr. Rotimi Oyekanmi has said that politicians were solely responsible for violence and acts of sabotage experienced during elections in Nigeria.
He revealed this while responding to questions and suggestions by media stakeholders relative to Nigeria’s electoral process at a public presentation/media stakeholders roundtable recently organised by the International Press Centre, Lagos/ EU-SUPPORT TO DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE IN NIGERIA (EU-SDGN).
According to Oyekanmi, the spate of violence recorded in the recently concluded Bayelsa and Kogi governorship and senatorial elections were clearly orchestrated by unscrupulous politicians in their bid to discredit the electoral process.
“In the process of charting a good course for the electoral process, politicians come to us claiming intent to fashion a good course but when they leave, they embark on activities contrary to what we agreed upon. The violence that greeted the elections in Bayelsa and Kogi were clearly orchestrated by politicians and so it had also been in previous elections in Nigeria. Thugs are jobless if politicians do not hire them during elections”, he said.
While stressing that achieving credible elections in Nigeria highly depended on the disposition of the political class, he also mentioned the unfortunate stance of Nigerian youth on the electoral process.
“Young people are not encouraging in terms of level of participation in the electoral process and this I consider very unfortunate. It is interesting and bewildering that youth prefer to pay to partake in voting in Big Brother Naija contests than get involved in the electoral process which does not even demand a kobo from them while determining their future as citizens of Nigeria”, he added.
“We recently got engaged with the EU on a campus initiative that took us through the six geopolitical zones visiting institutions of higher learning to sensitise the youth on the importance of their involvement in the electoral process. We even employed popular Nigerian music stars to attract attention of the students at the occasion and fortunately after the event, we noticed that the number of registered youths for voting increased. The ‘Not too Young to Run bill also has also helped to boost youth participation but the main challenge we still have is the abysmal level of participation of women in politics and the electoral process”, he said.
The public presentation/media stakeholders’ roundtable was on “Trends in reportage of post 2019 elections issues” (an analysis of trends in reportage of the 2019 post-election issues by 12 print/online news media and INEC online/social media platforms for July-September, 2019).
The presentation featured important inclusions by the Director, International Press Centre, Lagos, Mr. Lanre Arogundade and a Senior Lecturer, School of Communication, Lagos State University, Dr. Tunde Akanni.
