The Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room has raised concern over the state of affairs in the country. It has also warned that rising campaign rhetorics in Edo State portend a danger to the peaceful conduct of the upcoming governorship election, fearing that violence capable of truncating peaceful conduct of the September 19 election would occur. In a press conference addressed in Abuja on Tuesday, August 18, its Convener, Clement Nwankwo stated that the situation in the country, further compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the weaknesses of the Nigerian government. Furthermore, amid the abysmally low COVID-19 testing, support for citizens who are victims of the pandemic is near absent and the ravaging consequences of the pandemic has not been ameliorated by Government interventions. Mr. Nwankwo also stated that heightened insecurity in the country occasioned by several attacks by bandits, insurgents and terrorists, with the Security Services unable to respond in any responsible manner is also worrying. Multiple calls by State Governors, the National Legislature, CSOs and citizens for the sack of the ineffective leadership of the security agencies have been ignored by the President. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Situation Room further noted that\nhuman rights in the country remain under serious threat with free speech and\nfree expression constantly threatened. It referred to the recent peaceful\nprotests by the \u201cRevolution Now\u201d activists, who were highhandedly suppressed by\nsecurity forces and several of the protesters arrested and detained.\nFurthermore, the arbitrary increase in the fine for hate speech from N<\/s>500,000.00\n(five hundred thousand naira) to N<\/s>5,000,000.00 (five million naira) is\nalso perceived as an effort to muzzle free speech. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the upcoming election in Edo State, <\/strong>Situation Room expressed\nconcern over the rhetorics and isolated incidents of violence in Edo State\nahead of the September 2020 Governorship election and the absence of issue\nbased campaigns by political parties. Also of concern is the fact that campaign\nactivities are being conducted in total disregard to the COVID-19 pandemic\nprotection protocols of campaign and voting. However, Situation Room described the\nIndependent National Electoral Commission (INEC)\u2019s deployment of its Result\nViewing portal, where voters and the public can see polling unit results as\nelections progress, as a welcome development but underscored the need for necessary\nElectoral Act reforms and improvement in political party conduct to stabilise\nelections in Nigeria. The body noted that the recent nullification of the\nBayelsa State Governorship elections by the election tribunal also reinforces\nthe need for urgent action on electoral reform, particularly the role of the\njudiciary to dispense with election matters speedily. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Situation\nRoom therefore called on the Nigerian Government\n<\/strong>to <\/strong>genuinely\nseek to implement measures that restore citizens\u2019 confidence in its ability to\ngovern the nation, and address economic challenges of huge loss of jobs,\nfinancial hardships, and the arbitrary and unnecessary financial burden being\ninflicted on citizens via increased new taxes, fees, licenses etc. It\nunderscored that the Government should always respect and protect the rights of\nNigerians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On election administration, the body called on INEC to\nensure strict adherence to its guidelines for the conduct of elections and to clearly\nmap out punitive measures for election stakeholders who flout the Commission\u2019s\nCOVID-19 guidelines. The Commission should also ensure that its newly introduced\nelection results portal is transparent, effective and efficient.\nSituation Room further enjoined political parties in Edo State to focus\non issue based campaigns in this final lead to election day and to observe\nINEC\u2019s COVID-19 protocols in the conduct of campaign rallies. It called on security\nagents to be non-partisan and professional before, during and after the\nelection, and to abide by INEC\u2019s Code of Conduct and Rules of Engagement for\nSecurity Personnel on Electoral Duty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room has raised concern over the state of affairs in the country. It has also warned that rising campaign rhetorics in Edo State portend a danger to the peaceful conduct of the upcoming governorship election, fearing that violence capable of truncating peaceful conduct of the September 19 election would occur. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1653,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1648"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1654,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1648\/revisions\/1654"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}