‘No perfect elections worldwide’ — ACF condemns ethnic, religious politics

The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has decried how religion and ethnicity were devised to influence the voting pattern during the elections.

In a statement on Friday by Murtala Aliyu, secretary general of the forum, ACF said while the court can resolve legal controversies around the polls, “the issue of religion and ethnicity cannot possibly be resolved by the courts”.

The forum said despite cases of irregularities recorded during the governorship and presidential polls, the exercise passed off “fairly peacefully”.

“Where in the world do they organize perfect elections? The size of our operations, in any event, are so vast and complex that isolated incidents of this nature are impossible to prevent,” the statement reads. 

“We are pleased to note that candidates that felt dissatisfied with the outcome of the elections, including presidential candidates of the (PDP) Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP), have resolved to go to court, not the streets, to seek redress. That’s the right and honourable thing to do.

“Unfortunately, there is one particular problem thrown up by these elections that cannot possibly be addressed by the courts. It is the deployment of ethnic and religious sentiments as a driver of politics in Nigeria. 

“As we have seen in Lagos and elsewhere, ethnic and religious zealots have a way of turning political and election campaigns into life and death struggles.

“They issue threats of violence and at times actually attack supporters of rival candidates with a view to intimidating and stopping them from casting their votes. 

“It ought not to come as any surprise that voter apathy and absenteeism were unusually high in many areas as well as why voter turnout was very low across the country. 

“In Lagos where the problem created by ethnic and religious politics has continued to fester, acrimony and bad blood between Yorubas and Igbos have become a matter of concern to the security agencies.”

Stakeholders, including foreign observers, have noted that the elections were fraught with irregularities like violence, vote buying, intimidation of voters, and late arrival of election materials in many parts of the country.