The European Union and the National Peace Committee have deepened collaboration to curb electoral violence and promote credible, peaceful, and inclusive elections in Nigeria.
Ruben Aguilera, head of the governance, gender, human rights, and migration service of the EU delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS, said this at the official inauguration of the Election Security Information Hub on Wednesday in Abuja.
Mr Aguilera said the election security information hub was part of the longstanding partnership and support that the EU has provided to the NPC, among other forms of assistance, since its establishment in 2015 to deliver on its mandate.
He said,“We are moving beyond moral and convening power. We are now talking about moving into evidence-based platforms that would allow us to track incidents and those behind those incidents in terms of electoral offences.
“There can be no credible or inclusive elections without security, and unfortunately, as we know, there are still persistent security challenges. There was some information in the spring before showing, for example, how there are still incidents in places like Anambra, where we are also going to have elections coming up soon.”
Mr Aguilera explained that he had the pleasure of visiting some security agencies and the electoral body colleagues in Anambra, and they mentioned several local government areas where insecurity was a challenge for the delivery of the election.
He said there were areas controlled by bandit groups and other armed groups that were interfering in the deployment of teams that would ensure hitch-free elections.
Mr Aguilera said the ESI hub was another tool that the EU was supporting towards tackling violence.
“We sincerely hope that this tool will not only gather information but it will also use that information for high-level engagements for discussions but also for action. We do need to take that information seriously and whenever there are cases of insecurity, we need to act on them,”he said.
(NAN)