HURIDAC, CISLAC report: 187 deaths recorded @2023 elections - ITREALMS

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Some187 deaths have so far been recorded in the 2023 general elections in Nigeria, reports ITREALMS.

This was disclosed to ITREALMS by the Executive Director, Human Rights Advancement Development and Advocacy Centre (HURIDAC), Mr. Ayodele Ameen at the launch of the group's report "A Human Rights Perspective of the 2023 National Elections in Nigeria" co-produced with the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) in Lagos.
He said that some 187 people died during this year's election in Nigeria which is high from previous records.

This, he said, calls for concern, because it means Nigeria is losing good people because of elections, stressing that anyone participating in the election means well and ought to be encouraged rather than discouraged.

He lamented the death of a party agent killed by a security officer at a polling unit during election.

Also, Ameen decried the number of the actual voters who voted during the presidential election, thereby making it difficult to assess the election based on global yardstick, because they fall short of the number of Permanent Voter Card (PVC) collected.

Equally speaking, the assistant programme officer, HURIDAC, Ms Esther Atani revealed that some 261 human rights incidents were recorded nationwide during the last election, comprising pre and post-2023 election.

She cited an instance with Katsina which recorded highest human rights cases, most of which was pre-election period.

This, she said, was followed by Kano but on post-election incidents and then Borno with seven known cases.

11 states out of the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Ms Atani said, were incident free.

HURIDAC, therefore, called for more collaboration to drastically reduce election-related deaths in the country by offering more training for security agencies, among other stakeholders, while calling for persecution of election offenders.


Further, HURIDAC drummed support for Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) effort at getting special election offences tribunal in place.

Earlier, the Executive Director, CISLAC and chairperson of Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), Mr. Auwal Musa (Rafsanjani), who joined virtually from Abuja, in his remarks decried abuse of processes saying it debased the free and fair election as well as non-confirmation to the new Electoral Act as expected.

Equally speaking the programme officer at HURIDAC, Mrs Alice Babalola explained that on Chapter 7 for instance dwelt on the role of INEC and relevant frameworks that have emerged for this year's elections, including the use of technology based on the introduction of Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), new Electoral Act and issue of redesigning of Naira which came to play, to mention but a few.

ITREALMS recalled that HURIDAC was established in 2014, is a regional non-governmental organisation in West Africa and has strategically intervened on issues that relates to rule of law, election and human rights, as well as on the protection of the environment, with operational presence in Nigeria, Sierra Leone and The Gambia.

Remmy Nweke/DoP

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