CURBING ELECTORAL VIOLENCE: A COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILTY-AMB.DEDE, PROF. IWU
The consultant to the United Nations development program (UNDP) on electoral matters ambassador Dede has posited that checking electoral violence was a collective responsibility of all Nigerians. Ambassador Dede who was speaking at INEC ‘s stakeholders consultative forum held in the United states of America recently, reiterated that INEC was not constitutionally empowered to enforce law and order in the country.The UNDP consultant also used the opportunity of the stakeholders’ forum to call on the Nigerian political class to shun violence and embrace issue-oriented campaigns.Also speaking in the same vein, the INEC chairman, Professor Maurice Iwu, has appealed to Nigerians to shun all forms of electoral violence. Prof Iwu counseled that Nigerians should refuse to succumb to overtures for any form of violence.The duty of conducting a violence free election, Iwu further stressed, remained a collective one. He noted that those to be engaged for ad-hoc field work during elections are Nigerians.
