Nigeria is preparing for its general election. But will it be credible? Nigerian voters are well aware that the elections will not be won solely by votes or popular consensus. There are several other variables that influence election results.

President Muhammadu Buhari attends a campaign rally ahead of the 16 February elections. EPA-EFE/Stringer

These include the incumbent’s control of state security apparatuses, grassroots structures, and control of institutions such as market traders associations, and the National Union for Road Transport Workers.

The road transport workers’ union, which acts as a canopy for bus drivers, conductors, and motor park touts in Southwestern Nigeria, has a history of providing foot soldiers for employment as election thugs with skills in ballot box snatching and voter intimidation tactics.
In addition, the possibility that the election could be rigged cannot be ignored.

Questions around the credibility of elections in post-independence Nigeria can be traced as far back as the “First Republic” which lasted from 1960 – 1966. After allegations of massive rigging in the 1965 elections the country’s western region was engulfed in the infamous “Operation Wet-ie” riots.

The riots pitted rival political groups against each other leading to Nigeria’s first military coup in 1966. From then on the country experienced a series of coups. Between 1966 and 1999, when the country made a decisive break with military politics, Nigeria experienced eight military coups. In that same time period three general elections were conducted.
 

Tumultuous past

The years outside of military rule were comparatively brief and arguably overshadowed by the spectre of the military. When elections did happen they were plagued by strong allegations of electoral fraud. Since 1999, when the country broke with military rule, five elections have been conducted all of which have been tainted by controversy.

It’s clear to see that Nigeria has survived a tumultuous political history. Going into this next election, questions still remain about the credibility of the country’s electoral system, and the viability of it’s governance structures. Looking back things have often gone wrong, but are there instances where things have worked out well for the electorate?

I would argue that there have at least two instances when voters got what they asked for. One is the June 1993 presidential election, which is considered to have been relatively free and fair in its conduct, its eventual annulment notwithstanding. Another is the presidential election of May 2015 when the incumbent Goodluck Jonathan, gracefully accepted defeat by conceding to President Muhammadu Buhari.
Yet I still feel that Nigeria’s electoral system needs a complete overhaul if it’s to perform its functions with as little external interference as possible.

Shadow of military rule

The country has been ruled by military administrators more than it has by democratically elected leaders. For 29 years of Nigeria’s independent history military dictators have had a grip on its leadership. This is compared to just 20 years of democracy. The result has been that electoral rigging and malpractice are rife within Nigeria’s electoral process.

Since 1999, Olusegun Obasanjo and Muhammadu Buhari, both of whom were previously military dictators spent a combined 12 years in power. President Buhari is now seeking a second term. As a result, there are still those who argue that the country’s transition from military rule to democracy is not quite complete.

The executive arm, for example, still maintains certain authoritarian characteristics that are reminiscent of the military era. One of these is the use of the armed forces to manipulate election processes. For instance, during the recent gubernatorial elections in Ekiti and Osun states voter intimidation by the security forces was rife. This was done to scare away opposition voters and give the ruling All Progressives Congress an edge.

The electoral commission

Another factor to consider is the supposed independence and impartiality of the Independent National Electoral Commission which is in charge of running the elections. Critics point to the fact that the commission chairperson and others in the commission are nominated by the president. This calls into question the credibility of the entire electoral commission.

Further, Buhari has just appointed Amina Zakari as the new collation officer. Zakari will oversee the committee responsible for the national collation centre from where results of the presidential election will be announced. But Zakari has been alleged to have a family relationship with the president. This has raised suspicion within opposition circles that the government intends to rig the polls.

To make matters worse, the behaviour of the electoral commission in previous elections hasn’t always been above reproach. This has lent credence to the criticisms bout the body’s impartiality. In the run up to the 2007 general for example, the Supreme Court ruled that the commission had no power to disqualify candidates in the eleventh hour as it had purported to do in the case of opposition candidate Atiku Abubakar.

The opaque nature in which recent gubernatorial elections have been held has also added to the fears of a rigged presidential poll. The September 2018 gubernatorial election in Osun, for example, was panned by election observers as being riddled with voting irregularities like voter harassment, and interference by “inappropriate persons”. These irregularities were reinforced by the high number of security officers deployed to the state during the election period.

The involvement of the security apparatus in tilting this tightly contested election in favour of the ruling All Progressives Congress is considered to be an indicator of how things could pan out in the general election.

Role of outsiders

Observers like the European Union and the US also exert a measure of influence on Nigerian elections. By ramping up the rhetoric on the importance of free and fair elections they play into the hands of the opposition who have historically appealed to foreign powers to umpire the electoral process.

Incumbent governments, on the other hand, have typically been on the other side of the argument. Nigerian governments have often cited what they call the “neo-imperialism” of countries like the UK and the US and decried their interference in Nigeria’s sovereignty. This resistance to foreign interference was most recently evidenced in comments made by Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai, who threatened foreign observers with death if they engaged with local politicians.

Former president Goodluck Jonathan also trotted out the “foreign interference” trope when he claimed in his recently published memoir that the US played a hand in ensuring that he lost the 2015 election.

And a few weeks ago the ruling All Progressives Congress joined the bandwagon when they issued a statement telling the EU to not undermine Nigeria’s sovereignty.

Not all grim

Despite all of the above, it’s not all grim. There are some positive precedents that can be built on.

For example, despite predictions that there would election violence during the 2015 poll, Jonathan did the honourable thing by conceding defeat to Buhari.

His concession reinforced the notion that elections need not be a “do or die” affair. This peaceful transition after just one presidential term in office also set a positive trend for elections across Africa.

But with the slim margin between the incumbent, Buhari, and his main contender Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party – this narrative might need to be reinforced when Nigeria goes to the polls again on February 16.
 

Ini Dele-Adedeji, Teaching Fellow, Politics & Development Studies, SOAS, University of London

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Nigerians don’t trust the police and often resort to mob justice. Reuters/Afolabi Sotunde

Despite some Nigerian vigilante groups holding the potential for success, execution style jungle justice clearly poses a threat to the rule of law and due process. The brutality of the methods used, and the fact that victims may be innocent and merely in the wrong place at the wrong time, has led to widespread condemnation. But the perpetrators are rarely arrested and prosecuted. In fact, security officials themselves are sometimes implicated in extrajudicial killings.

A new bill being put through the Nigerian parliament aims to change this. The anti-mob lynching act recently passed its second reading in the Senate. It now needs to clear a third reading before being signed off and passed into law. This is expected to happen in the new year.
 

The extent of jungle justice

Alleged offences that draw mob lynching in Nigeria range from serious crimes such as murder, armed robbery, rape and kidnapping, to petty theft, homosexuality, blasphemy and even witchcraft.

A case that shocked the country involved the necklacing of four male students from the University of Port Harcourt – known as the Aluu four – in 2012. After being falsely accused of theft, the four had tyres doused in gasoline thrown around them and set on fire. The incident took place in Aluu, Rivers State in south Nigeria.

The brutal attack was filmed and circulated on social media, drawing widespread condemnation from the public. This led to the arrest of 12 people, and three, including a police officer, were subsequently sentenced to death.

More recently, in 2016, a homosexual was beaten to death in the south west Ondo State, and nine people were burnt alive in Zamfara State in the north west for insulting Prophet Muhammad. A man was lynched in Ebonyi State, south east Nigeria, over the theft of a motorcycle.

Mob lynchings have continued to appear in the news this year. Lagos has been featured regularly, with several incidents linked to alleged theft and kidnapping. Widespread fear over the Badoo cult saw numerous accusations of witchcraft resulting in deadly jungle justice.

Children are not excluded from the horrors of mob lynching. In 2015, a child said to be as young as 7 was necklaced, again in Lagos, for attempting to steal garri (cassava flour) from a trader. Young children accused of witchcraft are also often targeted, sometimes by their own families.

This is not a complete list; Nigerians often resort to mob lynching as they view the police and judicial system as corrupt and inefficient.
 

So what does the new bill aim to do?

The nature of mob violence can make it difficult to charge offenders under the laws that cover murder and assault. The new bill seeks to change that. It defines lynching as:
 

Three or more persons acting in concert for the purpose of depriving any person of his life without authority of law as a punishment for or to prevent the commission of some actual or supposed public offence.

Alongside lynching, the bill covers mob action that results in severe bodily harm, and riotous assembly causing destruction of property. A person found guilty of instigating any of these three criminal offences will be punished by imprisonment for life or not less than 25 years.

The bill stipulates that a security officer who fails to make reasonable efforts to prevent an attack, or to apprehend a perpetrator, will be punished by up to five years imprisonment or face a fine of up to N500,000 (USD$1400). A security officer who takes part in, or conspires to an extrajudicial attack, would be guilty of a capital offence. Those who have failed at prevention would be subject to dismissal and 15 years imprisonment.

These punishments could act as an excellent deterrent. However, the success of the bill will depend on police and judicial implementation. A legal system unable to deal with crime resulting in jungle justice may be unable or unwilling to prosecute the latter.

Nevertheless, the emphasis on security officer complicity is promising, and formal recognition will allow tracking and prevention.
 

A global problem

Mob lynching is not unique to Nigeria, nor to Africa. Nigeria is also not the first country to try and pass an anti-lynching bill.

Up until the mid-1900’s, African-Americans were commonly lynched in southern USA. Attempts were made to pass the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, but it was always halted by Southern congressmen in the Senate. In 2005, the Senate formally apologised for this failure.

More recently, after a spate of vigilantism in India, the country has pushed for an a new Protection from Lynching Act, referred to as MaSuKa. This would make lynching a specific, non-bailable offence, punishable by a maximum of life imprisonment and a fine of 5 lakh (USD$7770).

The MaSuKa also compels security officers to preemptively identify attacks and to intervene without delay. Failure to do so would result in discharge and punishment for dereliction of duty. When a lynching does happen, a charge must be laid within three months or a review committee will investigate, and the respective state must compensate the victim’s family.

Although the proposed new law has support from 11 of India’s political parties, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has complicated its passing in parliament.

Conversely, there is little doubt that Nigeria’s anti-mob lynching bill will be passed. With police and judicial support, it could provide an important precedent for countries struggling with mob lynching and official indifference.

Leighann Spencer, PhD Candidate in Criminology, Charles Sturt University
 

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Famine killed nearly 75 million people in the 20th century, but had virtually disappeared in recent decades. Now, suddenly, it is back. In late February a famine was declared in South Sudan, and warnings of famine have also recently been issued for Somalia, Nigeria and Yemen.

Moreover, in January the Famine Early Warning System (FEWSNET) – a U.S. government-funded organization created in 1985 specifically to predict famines and humanitarian emergencies – estimated that 70 million people affected by conflicts or disasters worldwide will need food assistance in 2017. This number has increased by nearly 50 percent in just the past two years.

What explains this rapid rise in the number of people who need emergency food assistance? And why, in an era of declining poverty and hunger worldwide, are we suddenly facing four potential famines in unconnected countries?

What are famines?

Famines are extreme events in which large populations lack adequate access to food, leading to widespread malnutrition and deaths. More of these deaths are caused by infectious disease than starvation because severe malnutrition compromises human immune systems. This makes people much more susceptible to killer diseases such as measles, or even common conditions such as diarrhea. Young children are especially vulnerable.

Experts now agree on three characteristics that define a famine:

• At least 20 percent of households in a given group face extreme food deficits, with no ability to cope;

• At least 30 percent of children in a given group are acutely malnourished, meaning that their weight is dangerously low compared to their height; and

• Mortality rates exceed two people per 10,000 population per day. For comparison, a noncrisis rate in contemporary sub-Saharan Africa would be about 0.3.
   

People affected by famine may also experience other impacts, including widespread hunger, loss of assets, the breakdown of social support networks, distress migration and destitution.

The last large-scale famines affected the Horn of Africa in 1984-85 and 1992, and North Korea in the mid-1990s. Since that time, only one large-scale famine has occurred: a devastating crisis in southern Somalia in 2011 that killed a quarter of a million people.

Click to zoom. Famine Early Warning Systems Network
 

Human-made emergencies

For many years experts believed that famines were caused by a shortfall in food availability. Then in 1981 economist/philosopher Amartya Sen published “Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation,” which showed that famines actually resulted when food was available but  some groups could not access it. Although many people believe today that famines occur mostly in Africa, the deadliest famines of the 20th century were in Europe (Ukraine) and Asia (China).

Today we recognize famines happen only with some degree of human complicity. Some analysts assert that famines are crimes of either commission or omission, because human decisions and actions determine whether a crisis deteriorates into a full-blown famine. They also contend that we cannot eradicate famine without holding people who cause it accountable. 

Famines typically have multiple causes. They can include climatic factors such as drought, economic shocks such as rapid inflation, and violent conflict or other political causes. Their impacts are more severe when underlying factors make some groups more vulnerable.

Mortality during famines may be exacerbated by conflict and displacement. Deliberately cutting off access to food is often a means of war. It is not a coincidence that the threat of famine in South Sudan, northeastern Nigeria, Yemen and Somalia is occurring in the midst of protracted, violent conflicts.
 

For example, the 2011 famine in Somalia was caused by a severe drought, a dramatic spike in the cost of food and devastating loss of purchasing power, and conflict. These occurred on top of long-term environmental degradation, deteriorating opportunities in agricultural and pastoral livelihoods, and the absence of a central state authority.

One party to the conflict, Al Shabaab, was an armed group that the United States and other countries labeled as a foreign terrorist organization. Al Shabaab controlled people’s movements and access to markets, and excluded or directly threatened many humanitarian agencies.

External donor governments prioritized containing the terrorist threat, and warned that any stolen or diverted aid that ended up in the hands of Al Shabaab would be treated as a criminal offense. These policies made it extremely difficult for humanitarian agencies to assist groups affected by the famine.

This combination of human-made factors thwarted adequate prevention or response measures until the famine declaration provoked a more vigorous response. By then, the number of people being killed by the famine had already peaked. Not surprisingly, the most marginalized groups within Somali society were the worst affected.

Famines are recurring today because once again, conflicts and natural disasters such as drought are converging in vulnerable areas. Shortened recovery cycles between recurrent crises – due partly to climate change – leave ever-larger groups more vulnerable.
 

Better warning systems

Famines result from cumulative processes we can observe and predict. That means we can prevent them through timely public action.

Early warning systems such as FEWSNET monitor agricultural production and rainfall trends, commodity markets and price trends, and conflicts. They also track trends in food access, malnutrition or mortality, and labor migration among at-risk populations.

Governments and humanitarian agencies can use this information to prevent or limit famines. Since the 1950s, food aid has been the main tool for responding to famines. Producer countries ship food to countries in crisis, and humanitarian organizations like the World Food Programme deliver it to affected populations.

Now we are paying more attention to protecting people’s livelihoods to help them cope with crisis and recover afterwards. Cash transfers have become the primary form of aid, although the U.S. government also provides food aid.

Ready-to-use therapeutic foods – high-energy pastes typically made from peanuts, oils, sugar and milk powder – have significantly improved treatment of acutely malnourished children. Actions in other sectors, including water and health, are helping the humanitarian community prevent and respond to famines.
 

Acting in time

Nonetheless, even when famines and food access crises are predicted, governments, donors and humanitarian agencies often fail to head them off – a pattern known as the “early warning/late response” problem. Sometimes it is due to negligence or bureaucratic inertia. More frequently there are political reasons, or armed conflict blocks access to affected populations. And donor nation policies may limit where assistance can go for political and security reasons.

Today the situation is urgent. Humanitarian aid budgets have not kept up with needs in recent years.

Some governments in affected countries and donor nations are gearing up responsibly to meet this problem. Others are not, or are sending unclear signals. While the U.S. is responding to the current crisis, foreign aid is one of many areas in which the Trump administration has proposed major cuts.

Even when enough resources are available, more must be done to deliver it to people who need it. This means working out measures to ensure access before crises deteriorate into famine. National governments and even rebel groups should renew their commitment to International Humanitarian Law, which guarantees civilians caught in conflict the right to assistance, expressly forbids the use of food as a weapon of warfare and provides support for efforts to prevent and resolve conflicts. Timely action based on early warning can avert major crises and save resources and lives – but it requires political commitment and constant vigilance.

Peter Hailey, founding director of the Centre for Humanitarian Change in Nairobi and former Chief of Nutrition for UNICEF Somalia, contributed to this article.

Daniel Maxwell, Henry J. Leir Professor in Food Security, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Terrorism is a threat everywhere. According to a Foreign Policy report, the worst terrorist events in 2015 occurred in Cameroon, Egypt, Iraq, Kenya, Nigeria, Syria and Yemen. 2016 has followed in step, with terrorist attacks occurring in locations as diverse as Belgium, Pakistan and Turkey.

Although most of these attacks led to injuries and fatalities, some writers have decried double standards in the media reporting and have highlighted the “seemingly differing public reaction to bombs in Belgium and attacks in Turkey”.

The nature and prominence of the way the media covers terrorist attacks is a good way to judge the public’s reaction – is the story on the front page or is it hidden away on page 13? But there are a range of other public responses – such as the solidarity rally of world leaders following the Paris attacks, flying official flags at half-mast on governmental buildings and lighting up landmark monuments in the colours of the national flag of the afflicted country.

Activity on social media, such as using Twitter hashtags and changing Facebook profile pictures to show solidarity is another potent indicator of the public’s response.

But all of the above indicators have to be approached with a degree of caution. Assessing the public response to an outrage by monitoring social media, for example, raises questions of computer accessibility. Not only that, but not everyone necessarily perceives social media as the appropriate medium for public expressions of solidarity.

The Economist found that, in the period 2000 to 2014, most of the deaths from terrorist events occurred in the Middle East and Africa – not the West. Indeed, according to Foreign Policy, in 2015, the most devastating terrorist attacks took place in Nigeria (with death tolls that ranged from 150 to 2,000) and Egypt (with a death toll of 224).

Seeking common ground

With respect to the seemingly differing Western public responses to terrorist events across the globe, several factors may play a role, including the spread and availability of journalists. Others have suggested a racist narrative. Will Gore, writing in The Independent about the attacks in Brussels in March, concluded that there is a “fundamentally racist narrative at play … we value white European lives more than those of dark-skinned people beyond Europe’s borders”.

But another factor is the common cultural and historical heritage of the West which may appear heightened in times of adversity. As an article in The Atlantic suggested: “Americans are much more likely to have been to Paris than to Beirut – or to Cairo, or to Nairobi, or to any number of cities that have experienced bloody attacks. If they haven’t travelled to the French capital themselves, they’ve likely seen a hundred movies and TV shows that take place there, and can reel off the names of landmarks. Paris in particular is a symbol of a sort of high culture.” For Americans, read most audiences in the West.

For a few days the whole world was Paris. EPA/Various photographers

By contrast, writing in the aftermath of the Ankara terrorist attacks, Turkey-based journalist Liz Cookman notes that the country “continues to teeter on the line between East and West, making it hard to understand – a Muslim country with increasingly conservative values that also has its sights set on the EU”.

‘Otherness’

This lack of understanding of non-Western countries may in part, as Cookman suggests, be down to ignorance. But it may also be related to what Edward Said refers to as “Otherness”. Said argues that Westerners imagine the Orient as an exotic and strange place and describe it in stereotypical and mythical ways which serve to accentuate and reinforce the Orient’s difference from the West.

The Economist found that, in the period 2000 to 2014, most of the deaths from terrorist events occurred in the Middle East and Africa – not the West. Indeed, according to Foreign Policy, in 2015, the most devastating terrorist attacks took place in Nigeria (with death tolls that ranged from 150 to 2,000) and Egypt (with a death toll of 224).

However, Western public responses to such events may appear more muted, perhaps because of an emphasis on the Otherness of non-Western countries, which enables Westerners to more readily accept a lower standard of protection in those countries. While in the West, terrorist attacks such as the ones we witnessed in Paris and Brussels are shocking and unthinkable, in “other” parts of the world – from a Western point of view – they are, sadly, a fact of life.

This notion of the “Other” may, to some extent, also emerge in Middle Eastern reporting of terrorist attacks. According to a review of the Middle East press on the Paris attacks, “within the overall rejection [of the terrorists' violence] that dominated the papers' front pages, a small number of papers raised questions about Western governments' policies in the world”. These papers saw a Western role in “feeding terrorism” and that such attacks took place after “a wave of Islamophobia has emerged in France’s neighbour, Germany”.

But most of the coverage of the Paris attacks in the Middle East was filled with sympathy and concern. Al-Arabiya English, based in Dubai, carried a comprehensive roll-call of Middle East and Gulf leaders condemning the attacks and offering condolences and support. Meanwhile, Turkey’s Hurriyet Daily News offered strong analysis and opinion in the days following the atrocity, taking the line that: “This is no longer a fight within the boundaries of the Middle East and Mesopotamia” and calling for a concerted strategy to fight IS.

So for the Middle East press, the West can be the “Other” – and, perhaps, not without justification. But what is also clear is that, perhaps because of their tragic familiarity with terrorism, people in the Middle East and Africa are more generous with their responses to terrorism in the West.

(The writer is senior lecturer in International Law, Anglia Ruskin University).

This article was first published on The Conversation.

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