By Myke Uzendu, Abuja
The government of United Kingdom (UK) has disclosed that any Presidential Candidate including Peter Obi of Labour Party (LP), Atiku Abubakar of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) that promotes electoral violence in any form including the social media will face Visa sanctions.
British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mrs Catriona Lang issued the threat on Wednesday when he visited the leadership of PDP at the party’s National Headquarters in Abuja.
The Envoy told PDP leaders that the UK government is very much interested in the democratic transition going on in the country. She however expressed worry over the recent attack on political parties during campaigns and said that UK will resort to Visa sanctions if such trend is not reversed.
“We have been really concerned about recent events: 52 election violence related issues in 22 states including an attack on the PDP convoy in Maiduguri. That is a real concern, and we want to exchange our thoughts on what you can do as a political party to ensure that the election are as peaceful as possible.
“When people feel intimidated, they can’t get out to vote, the election itself will not be credible that is why the violence is of great concern.
“On the issue of electoral violence, since we do have sanctions in the form of our Visa program. We will also be watching closely any individual who acts violently or insight people through the social media, we do have the possibility of using our Visas as sanction by removing Peoples rights to visit the UK.
“We will be watching closely, these apply to all the political parties, not just the parties, but security officials and anybody who might be in that position” the envoy said.
He regretted that electoral violence has created voter apathy but commended the recent upsurge in youth registration during the just concluded Continuous Voters Registration Exercise (CVR)
“This election is very important to Africa and parts of the world, so the spotlight will be on Nigeria and the UK will be watching closely.
“We have engaged in so many ways, we have spoken with INEC, civil societies, we don’t support any political party, it is for the people of Nigeria to decide who will lead them at the federal level and state levels, in that spirit we are meeting all the main political parties.
“The really important thing is to get the votes out, whatever political party you are, the election will be credible, if the votes are high. It was low last time around 35 percent. There is also the issue of registration of young voters, that is a real positive and we hope that they would turn out to vote on the day of election, because it will make the election much more credible”.
While responding, National Chairman of the party, Sen. Iyorchia Ayu urged called on the UK government to put pressure on political parties to ensure that they keep to the letters of the peace accord which was signed by all the political parties.
He asked them to prevail on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) not to abandon the use of Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and electronic transmission of election results despite pressure so to ensure a credible and transparent election.
Represented by the National Secretary, Sen. Samuel Anyanwu, he said, “Nigerians are waiting for our party and our party build on pure democracy, remember when the National Peace Commission asked our people to come and sign that we are going to do our campaign on issue-based my party was the first, and we signed that document, and we have maintained all the issues raised by the National Peace Commission.
“We try to believe that in 2019 there was voter apathy but this time around in 2023 a lot of the younger generation want to be involved, they want to change leadership and government because it has affected them. You are aware that our students for eight months were out of school. It is a payback time for them, and that is why you see massive registration.
“We believe that with the BVAS which INEC is able to introduce, it is not going to be business as usual and that is why we keep praying for INEC to maintain what they have promised to Nigerians and when that is done, we will find out that our party is in top gear.
“The other party is just using abusive statements which are not part of what we signed; our campaign should be issue-based. We are happy that you are always watching what is happening here. You remember is from the same Kaduna State that a threat was issued to foreign observers who are coming to observe elections to be credible, it was one of the APC governors who said that when these people come, they will go back in body bags. That is one of the hate speeches, we don’t want”.
He said that Nigerians are eager to change the current administration due to the level of hardship the citizens are going through. He asked the envoy to continue to monitor the process and engage stakeholders so that the right things will be done.
