The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has revealed that 15 hate speeches were recorded by the commission in the month of February.
This was revealed on Tuesday in the Commission ‘s headquarters, Abuja during it’s monthly review forum
While presenting the details of the February report, , NHRC MOVE Project Coordinator and Special Adviser to the Executive Secretary on Human Rights Hilary Ogbonna said, in the month of February several attacks were recorded across the country.
According to Ogbonna, “Ten law enforcement agents were killed in the month of February, Unknown gunmen/bandits carried out twelve attacks, three bomb attacks and two attacks 9n INEC facilities.
“Also, seven NNPP supporters were killed in Kano, LP Senatorial Candidate was assassinated in Enugu,while three Vigilante were also killed in Enugu attack and a DPO and four others were killed in Niger State,” he said.
However, the NHRC Executive Secretary Chief Tony Ojukwu (SAN) frowned at the failure of INEC to comply with its own promise to upload election results duly signed by party agenda and entered into the BVAS at the early stage of the election on Saturday, adding that it was surprising that early collation was based on manual documents rather than electronic upload.
He said it was not acceptable to transmit results manually when the law says it has not be transmitted electronically, adding that manual and electronic upload should go simultaneously.
Meanwhile, he said all issues of intimidation, hate speech, vote buying, denying people access to vote and be voted for and voter suppression are to be investigated by the Commission as lots of such incidences were captured by the Commission’s monitors across the country, insisting that every violator must be held accountable.
He said that reports by NHRC monitoring officers show that issues of interferences, intimidation and other infractions by security and law enforcement operatives were very minimal, as there were few incidences in a few States.
He reminded security and law enforcement operatives to be aware that they would be held accountable for violations or abuses of rights of citizens.
In his remark, the Executive Director, Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre and Coordinator, Transition Monitoring Group, Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, condemned INEC for its silence for days while the people complained about manual upload of results rather than electronically.
He traced some of the problems plaguing Nigeria’s current electioneering process to commercialisation and privatisation of party tickets by political parties.
