Following the loss of lives and property emanating from the elections violence in the country, the National Coordinator/Chief Executive Officer (NC/CEO), Africa Union development Agency-New Partnership for Africa’s Development, (AUDA-NEPAD) Nigeria, said that the agency will collaborate with the security agencies to curb elections violence in Nigeria.
Akobundu who stated this at a meeting with the Nigerian Army noted that the collaboration was to enhance constructive engagement of the security agencies on the way forward to eliminating elections violence in the country.
The AUDA-NEPAD Boss, said that the meeting was in preparation for a violence free elections summit of AUDA-NEPAD/APRM in collaboration with the security agencies and other stakeholders scheduled to hold this year stressing that the meeting will proffer concrete solutions to the elections violence in Nigeria.
Akobundu explained that the overriding need to conduct the summit was due to the experiences before, during and after the just concluded 2019 general elections and the prevailing security threats in some parts of the country.
According to the NC/CEO, ‘‘elections violence, is occasioned by electoral malpractices which have become a re-occuring problem and threat to achieving democracy and good governance in Nigeria and Africa at large’’.
In the same vein, the Director, Africa Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), Mrs Juwaretu Olumoko, stated that the role of security agencies in Nigeria elections will enhance the achievement of the desired goal of national action plan on violence free election which in line with the Africa Union (AU) agenda 2020 and 2063 on silencing the guns’’.
Speaking at the meeting, the leader of the delegation of the Nigeria Army Resource Centre (NARC), Major-General Garba Wahab, commended the AUDA-NEPAD for its relentless efforts in ensuring peaceful elections adding that Nigeria Army will continue to protect the territorial integrity of the country as well as curbing elections violence if it is invited to perform such function.
