By Gift Olivia Samuel, The Sight News
ABUJA: Following the continued spate of insecurity in Nigeria, the civil advocacy organization, Connected Development, CODE is launching a Monthly Security Dossier (MSD) that will serve as security advisory to policy makers, security agencies and most importantly, inform citizens on how best to take action.
CODE’s Chief Executive, Hamzat Lawal, who made this known to Journalists on Friday in Abuja, noted that Nigeria is amongst the countries with the highest number of terror-related deaths with no one getting punished by these deaths, adding that the dossier is the organisation’s response to the security situation in Nigeria.
Lawal, who expressed the belief that the first edition of the dossier will help inspire the needed conversation and action, disclosed that so far, CODE recorded that 3,120 Nigerians were victims of security breakdown across the federation, 465 persons were killed, 355 persons were kidnapped, 120 persons sustained injuries and 2,000 persons were displaced in the country.
He also pointed out that CODE’s security dossier will be regular over the next couple of months, adding thus, “We are hoping that this security dossier will inform a national civil society working group on security and development, partnering with government and security actors to ensure we build sustainable peace working with traditional and religious institutions.
“Knowing that we have over 10,000 people on the ground cut across all the 774 local government areas, we are also documenting and collecting reports of most security cases that don’t even make it to social media or mainstream media. We have now recruited researchers that have a security background and we are also recruiting security experts who have had on-the-spot and field experience.
“I believe that Nigeria and our security chiefs have what it takes to tackle insecurity but what I don’t understand is, what is holding their hands?”, He stated.
Speaking on the August 9, 2022 Kenyan election in relation to the 2023 general elections in Nigeria, he said CODE will be deploying a team of international delegates to observe the election, especially in the areas of early arrival of ballot boxes, level of security, intimidation, harassment or inducement.
“CODE has deployed international delegates to observe the upcoming Kenyan 2022 elections. CODE in partnership with Ushahidi, a Kenyan-originated open source software application which utilises user-generated reports to collate and map data, developed a technology-driven election monitoring platform known as Uzabe.
“Uzabe, a real-time intelligence and mapping tool, enables situation and eyewitness reports from various polling units in real-time. With this tool, CODE aims to strengthen emergency response during elections that mitigate electoral violence and uphold the integrity of elections in Africa.
Furthermore, he said CODE successfully observed elections back in 2013 in Kenya, Nigeria’s 2015 and 2019 general elections, USA 2016 Presidential election, and will deploy observers in 2023 general elections seeking to, again, ensure peaceful electoral process, promote national reconciliation and improve quality of elections using Uzabe.
“We are excited that in 2023, Connected Development is commiting her resources to deploy 20,000 observers for the general elections. We want to ensure that we cover all the 774 local government areas. This will be our largest deployment and the largest civil society deployment not only in Nigeria but in Africa”, he said.
For his part, CODE’s Head of Election Mission to Kenya, Njoku Emmanuel, pointed out that although the Kenyan population is less than Nigeria with about 46,000 polling units and 21 million voters while Nigeria has about 176,000 polling units with about 96 million voters, monitoring the Kenyan election will serve as a trial for Nigeria on the deployment of technology in 2023.
Commenting further, he said, “I am trusting that inasmuch as a civil Society Organisation we are going to Kenya to observe this very part of the election, we are hoping that the Nigerian government and INEC will also observe the process because, what we are planning to do is what they are already doing in terms of technology deployment for a general election.
“It is important that the Kenyan election is one election before our big election in Nigeria that we need to really watch closely and see the expected challenges. We are hoping that this opportunity will give us that advantage to see.
“We are hoping that this process and the deployment of technology they have put in place, will be seamless and the election will generally be free and fair and in that way, it will be a major lesson for us as a nation and civil society to prepare ahead of the election in 2023”, he concluded.