Time Is Running Out to Secure Nigeria's Elections | Opinion

In less than three months, Nigeria will face elections, and the stakes couldn't be higher.

On Feb. 25, 2023, about 95 million Nigerians will go to the polls to elect our new president, vice president and all 469 members of the National Assembly. Two weeks later, we will choose 28 state governors and the legislatures of all 36 states.

If successful, this will be the first time Nigeria has secured three consecutive peaceful transitions of power—an important indicator of how our democracy has been progressing since 1999, when the military last ruled. If unsuccessful, it will be a huge blow to a country already reeling from serious security threats and economic challenges.

Being Africa's largest economy and biggest democracy, the outcome of Nigeria's election is likely to affect its neighbors. A successful voting could send a strong message to other African states where democracy has been backsliding, with more than 40 coups and attempted coups since 2010.

Peaceful and credible elections have never been a foregone conclusion in Nigeria, but there are additional threats this time. The biggest are violent non-state armed groups who have publicly expressed a wish to scupper our vulnerable democracy, chief of which are Boko Haram, the separatist Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and brutal criminal gangs locally known as "bandits."

Boko Haram is a jihadi group that has since 2009 killed 350,000 people and displaced 3 million in the Lake Chad region, a marshy area where Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad meet—and has influenced groups across Africa. It has splintered into three factions—one affiliated to the Islamic State and another to Al Qaeda. But each faction remains committed to their founding fathers' rejection of democracy as "anti-Islamic" and their vow to destroy it.

Boko Haram has made spirited attempts to derail previous elections, including forcing the 2015 presidential polls to be delayed by six weeks, shaking our faith in democracy. They made another attempt in 2019, with a spate of attacks on Election Day and its eve in towns and cities of the northeast. Over the past two years, each faction has expanded not only their attacks but also their cells to other parts of Nigeria, and with other violent actors draining scarce security and intelligence resources, Boko Haram will likely bump up efforts to scuttle the 2023 election.

Another group posing a threat to the elections are bandit gangs whose motive has mutated in recent years from extorting ransom payments to ethnic grievances. There are estimated to be 100 distinct gangs with a total of 30,000 men under arms, whose militias have burgeoned in lethality and sophistication since the last election, killing thousands of people, extorting millions of dollars and displacing millions. From targeting rural communities, bandits have dramatically expanded to assaulting major towns, highways and infrastructure, with heavy weapons such as anti-aircraft missiles and explosives.

Their latest victims have been over 1,000 schoolchildren and teachers abducted in eight separate attacks on schools spanning five states and each set held for weeks or months, with 11 girls remaining in captivity for 17 months and still counting. The gangs were very clear that they targeted public schoolchildren to "anger" the government and extort ransom from it. Election officials and observers perfectly fit this same bill.

Secessionists are yet another security threat that has emerged since the last election. The grievances driving the separatist IPOB, which was formed in 2012, with the aim of establishing the "Republic of Biafra," can be traced back to Nigeria's independence. But the group went violent in December 2020, when its leader Nnamdi Kanu launched the Eastern Security Network (ESN), with a self-proclaimed mandate "to defend our land of Biafra" from Fulani invaders, Fulani being the ethnic group of President Muhammadu Buhari. Since then, IPOB's violence have become pervasive in southeast and parts of the oil rich south-south geopolitical zone.

Between October 2020 and June 2021, suspected ESN militants targeted 164 police facilities, killing 175 security personnel, according to Nigeria's attorney general. One especially worrying feature of IPOB's attacks has been its systematic destruction of critical election infrastructure. Between October 2020 and June 2021, there were 19 attacks on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)'s facilities, resulting in the destruction of many offices, 18 vehicles and many election materials and devices. INEC's chair has warned that these attacks may "undermine the Commission's capacity to organise elections."

In November 2021, IPOB threatened that to impose a six-day lockdown in Anambra to prevent the state's governorship elections. Although the group backtracked in the face of pressure from Igbo leaders, it could be sign of things to come. The group had in 2021 imposed a six-month long "sit-at home Mondays" when residents were forced to stay at home every week while markets, banks and government offices remained closed, demanding the release of their leader Nnamdi Kanu from prison. IPOB has already threatened to disrupt the 2023 election if Kanu, who is facing treason charges, is not released.

But election itself can be a trigger for violence in Nigeria. At least 100 people have been killed in election-related violence in each of the past five general elections, with 2011 being the deadliest, when three days of violent riots and communal unrest left at least 800 people dead and 65,000 displaced. The ruling party's "Muslim-Muslim" ticket for president and vice president in a polarized country that is almost evenly split between Christians and Muslims could encourage agents of division to frame the election as a clash between the two religions, aided by misinformation and disinformation on social media.

The 2023 election season is already showing scary signs of violence. With over 80 days still to go, 24 people have been killed and over 20 injured in campaign-related violence as President Buhari decried 32 violent incidents during one month of campaigning. If this trend continues, hundreds could die by the end of the election season.

Time is short. But crucial steps can still be taken. The Nigerian government needs to expand efforts to liberate or secure villages and towns most affected by criminality and terrorism. Swift prosecutions of those responsible for election violence—and spreaders of fake news—will deter those intent on destroying democracy. The police and electoral body must remain impartial, as election-related riots often start with allegation of their bias, while imams and pastors should oppose the manipulation of religion for political purposes.

The United States, United Kingdom and the European Union should send a clear message in support of peaceful elections in Nigeria and put pressure on Big Tech to effectively monitor their platforms to stop the spread of fake news. The media and civil society should be supported to promote peaceful elections, including by countering misinformation and disinformation, and calling out their purveyors. At this critical point, the world must stand with Nigerian democracy.

Successful elections in 2023 will be a giant stride toward consolidation of democracy in the most populous Black nation on Earth, but the risks are equally high. While the buck stops with Nigerians, the international community can play a pivotal role in ensuring secure and credible polls.

Bulama Bukarti is a senior analyst in the Extremism Policy Unit of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, where he focuses on violent extremist groups in sub-Saharan Africa.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.