Residents of Kienna, Obi, Doma and Awe communities in the state told SaharaReporters that the presence of large military personnel to their areas was frightening.
Barely 48 hours before the commencement of the 2023 general elections in Nigeria, communities in Nasarawa state have expressed concerns over heavy deployment of military personnel in their area.
Residents of Kienna, Obi, Doma and Awe communities in the state told SaharaReporters that the presence of large military personnel to their areas was frightening.
Spokesperson for the communities, Magaji Abari, said, "We are not opposed to military deployment to help in the smooth conduct of the election. What we fear is the situation of them being used to intimidate our people."
This comes amid a petition to the Head of Service of the Federation by a pro-democracy group, Democracy Watch, accusing the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Defence, Abubakar Kana of planning to use the military against opposition parties in Nasarawa state during the elections.
The petition, signed by Inusa Agabi, was delivered to the office of the Head of Service of the Federation on Wednesday and made available to journalists in Abuja.
Agabi alleged that there was a clandestine move by Kana to use the military who would be deployed for election duty to achieve his selfish mission.
He claimed that Democracy Watch was in possession of a report which fingered Kana in the use of military personnel to intimidate opponents of his favoured candidates during the last National Assembly primary election of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
Agabi, accordingly called on the Minister of Defence, Gen. Bashir Magashi (retd.), Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Lucky Irabor to ensure that the military display professionalism during the elections.
He also assured that the Democracy Watch would deploy all its agents to all 109 senatorial districts in the country during the election to monitor and observe any misconduct that is capable of undermining the credibility of the elections.
He said, "Ours is to monitor and observe the process of electioneering beginning from primary elections to General Elections.
"After the evaluation of last primaries, we have discovered that some officials of the Ministry of Defence had used personnel of the Nigerian Army to intimidate perceived opposition delegates during the last National Assembly primary election in the state.
"We are, therefore, calling on the top officials of the defence ministry to ensure members of the armed forces adopt professionalism during the coming elections.
"We have solemnly observed the massive deployment of military to forestall insecurity threats during the elections which is in order and commendable.
"However, we advise the military to be professional in their conduct so as to avoid any act that can jeopardize the mission to bequeath credible polls.
"On our part, we shall expose any group or individual who would be identified overtly or otherwise in an attempt to thwart the expectations of the general public.
"We shall deploy our agents to states where we identified as stubborn when it comes to electioneering process in which Nasarawa is one.”
"We are, therefore, advising politicians and their cohorts to desist from conducts capable of undermining the much expected credible general elections,'' he added.
However, responding to the issues raised, Director, Army Public Relations, Brigadier General Onyema Nwachukwu, said, "In line with its constitutional mandate to provide support to civil authorities, troops of the Nigerian Army have been deployed to carry out Operation Safe Conduct to provide support to the Nigeria Police in ensuring peace and security for the safe conduct of the 2023 polls.
"The troops are guided by renewed Code of Conduct and Rules of Engagement to ensure the protection of citizens' rights during the operations.
"A number of hotlines have also been released by the Nigerian Army to ensure that law abiding citizens promptly report suspicious and violent acts capable of disrupting or breaching the peace during the polls.
"The conduct of the troops could also be monitored and reported on these available lines. The deployment is across the country and not an isolated case. Law abiding Nigerians are please urged not to panic and to go about the elections peacefully. The troops are deployed for their protection in order to ensure they freely exercise their franchise."
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