 The presidential candidates participating in the 25th of February elections have signed a second peace accord. The presidential candidates of the all-progressive Congress, APC Boilatinebou, who did not attend the first peace signing, attended the signing alongside his running mate, Kashim Shatema, and APC Chairman Abdulahi Adamou. Now, other candidates that attended the signing included Omoele Shore of the African Action Congress, Rabiu Kwon-Kwiso of the New Nigerian People's Party, NNPP, and others. The candidates of the People's Democratic Party, PDP Atikwa Buboka and that of Labour Party PWB did not attend the event. However, the presidential candidates of the African Action Congress, Omoele Shore, has again forced the idea of signing peace pacts ahead of the 2023 election, querying whether Nigeria and other candidates are at war. Now, he also accused some Nigerian governors of inciting violence during the election-eering period. Well, joining us to discuss this tonight is Professor Richard Wokocahi, a professor of law at the River State University. Thank you so much, Professor, for joining us and good evening. Thank you. Good evening. And happy New Year to you again. Yeah, happy New Year. It's interesting that Omoele Shore is raising this case against governors, because half the time when peace accords are being signed, mostly signed by presidential candidates, now, if you do see it being signed in states, it's because they had been previous issues of violence. But in this case, let's start from the states and then walk our way up to the federal. I have seen peace, a peace accord being signed in River State at some point during the election. And that was because of several, you know, warring factions within and without parties. But what is the veracity or the binding or how binding are these peace packs? Does it have any impacts? Does it does it have any repercussions if they be broken whatsoever? Or are they just let's say some form of, you know, formality that's being done just so that it looks like, hey, we all want peace here, even though in the back end, somebody might be fueling some form of violence. Well, going by our history, electoral history, what has been obvious is that in virtually all the elections have been acts of violence, perpetrated by persons acting for parties, one party or the other. So if you are asking whether this signing of peace accords are useful instruments, I think it has become a ritual for us. As a lawyer rightly pointed out, signing of peace accords in the case that there is a war or there is an insurrection of some form and you're getting warring parties to agree to end the hostilities or end the war. And so it's first and foremost an odd thing to do in a run up to election. I mean, elections are serious, national, several issues that citizens express their choice of candidates and prepare their states to be run and administered by the next administration. So the question will be, why are you calling truce? Why the war? But again, as I said, our experience has shown that in every election there has been acts of violence and the question remains what has been the consequence of those acts of violence? Those breaches of those social agreements we call peace accords. See no effect, no consequence for those breaches. And so one cannot help but agree that there are rituals that are not really useful, that do not contribute to the peaceful conduct of the election at the end of the day. The fact that you and I have looked at the fact that they may just be normal rituals that have to be done before an election or an electioneering process. Let's look at the state of the nation as we speak. We had, in the past few weeks, another kidnap case where people were taken from a train somewhere in a dough state. As we speak, INEC facilities are still being burned. People are being killed. Last week, if I'm not mistaken, a priest was burned to death. I mean, literally so many acts of insecurity, violence. This morning I heard somebody asking the INEC voter education chairman, first of all, if the elections will really be holding in those places where their facilities have been destroyed and some materials also gone with the arson. But the question that was continuously lingering in my mind was, where are the consequences for these actions? And why, because there was an INEC office that was attacked twice in a row. And one would wonder if this has happened before, what were the things that were put in place to make sure that this does not happen again. But then it did happen again. So how seriously are we taking this issue of election violence, pre-election violence, or even election violence on the day of election? And who's to say that it will be a safe atmosphere for us to go ask and vote, aside from just doing the ritual of signing peace pact? There is the usual ritual of election. There won't be police. They will look at the election with a number of contingents of their agency to different parts of the country. That takes place, but our experience shows that that deployment of officers has not in any way stopped the perpetration of acts of violence. And what is more serious and the more important to me is the fact that those acts go unchallenged. Now, every business is a business. I have consistently said, including on this particular media, I have consistently said that when a business goes without consequence, more investors will be attracted into the business who have consistently had elections marked by violence. Abitrators of the violence or sponsors of those violence have had free time going into office and running through the office. There has been no consequence. The boys were not arrested. Nobody has ever been convicted for electoral violence. People get killed. Nothing is done about it. The electoral office has get killed. Police officers get killed. And nothing is done about it. Nobody pays for it. So what makes you think the next election will not bring something worse? Definitely, parties will prepare as if they are going to war. And so you will see the acts of violence that will be witnessing in our election. It is worrisome. And I think we need to focus mainly on that question. Why does crime in election time in Nigeria not attract punishment? Because that is what is causing that business to thrive. That is what is causing it to increase. I'm curious. Why are we willing to punish them? Yes, while we all need answers to that question, I recently spoke to the electoral commissioner in Kenya, who they just recently had the elections. I think last year. And for the first time in the history of Kenya, that election was not marred by violence as usual. And I was curious to pick his brains as to what they did that helped them to, you know, douse the tension. And he gave me an array of... I mean, they broke it down and how they strategically worked with security agencies, CSOs, the people at the local levels. And we know that Nigeria, we always go to these countries and observe the elections. Why is it so difficult for us to borrow a lift from these people? Because I'm guessing that what I heard from the electoral commissioner in Nairobi was not necessarily a hidden secret. It was not top security. It was not a security thing. It's public. It was made public. So I'm wondering if someone like former president Goodlock Jonathan was there to observe the elections. Why are we not learning something from a country like Kenya? We're not talking about the U.S. now. But Kenya, why is it so difficult for us to, you know, absorb these things and make it happen? Or is there somebody who's benefiting from this violence? I think that would be a rhetorical question because every act of violence during election in Nigeria has been sponsored. In many cases, they are targeted against specific persons. Our experience shows that in any state in which one party is in control, the bulk of the acts of violence are targeted against the other parties in opposition in that state. And it goes unpunished. So there is no act of violence in Nigeria and electoral process that comes from nowhere for no reason. They are all sponsored. And those who are behind them benefit maximally. We have yet not been able to discover how to make them pay for violating the law. Section 227 of the Electoral Act provides that there shall be no paramilitary organization or organizing of people, whether you call it committee, organs or whatever to engage in acts of violence or acts that will cause apprehension. But look around the country even now as we are days away from the presidential election. You have party committees organized to pull out posters of other parties in the states to bring down their billboards and all manner of such things. Organize, these things are done publicly. You see video clips of them. The faces are known. In some cases, local government chairman mandated by their party leaders within the area carry out these things on camera and there is no consequence. In clear breach of the law. So I mean, we cannot say whether somebody is benefiting. They are directly organized for the purposes of making the organizers benefit. So does this also one way or the other have a blowback on our judiciary? Because does it mean, because we have laws. I don't think that we're in shortage of laws in this country. Is it that we're afraid to test these laws or we're just turning a blind eye in conclusion? I think we run into the trap of giving a very light definition to violence in elections. By using the clause, we have always used in judicial activities of our substantial compliance. There for the election is valid. If we are taking the other route of invalidating an election because it's violated, the conduct violated the law governing the process. Parties would have organized and said better and would have avoided that, which will lead to the striking down of their quote unquote, electrical victory achieved through violation of the electoral act. So I think, yes, we do have problem with the very light interpretation we have given to acts of violence in election and it has enabled the gladiators in that sector to turn the law directly upside down and to benefit from it without consequence. Well, I would have loved to continue to have this conversation, but unfortunately, time is not on our side. But I want to say thank you. Professor Richard Aduche Wokochar is a professor of law at the River State University and it's always a pleasure to have these conversations with you, Professor. Great pleasure. Thank you for coming. All right, well, that's it on the show tonight on Plus Politics. It's a brand new week, but we will be back tomorrow at 7 p.m., same time. And don't forget, go get your PVC because we're on the last lap. If you haven't collected your PVC, go get it right now. Go back to your ward or where you registered and pick it up. That's your passport to a new Nigeria. I'm Mary Anna Cohn. Have a good evening.