For President Muhammadu Buhari, victory is assured in the 2019 general elections, United States Institute of Peace has predicted.
The institute made the position known in its report on the forthcoming general elections, which it said, was predicated on its interactions with Nigerians from different sectors.
While the report acknowledged that many Nigerians believed the current administration have not met their expectations, the USIP said that was not enough to cause the All Progressives Congress electoral loss.
It read: “Many Nigerians feel their hopes have not been met. Some respondents suggest the electorate is sufficiently disappointed that voter apathy will be greater in 2019 than in 2015, with the unifying narrative of change that helped elect the APC in 2015 much less compelling as a factor in mobilising the electorate, and perceptions that another defeat of the presidential incumbent is less likely to happen in 2019.”
Drawing a comparison between the 2015 polls and next year’s, the institute predicted a greater chance of the occurrence of election violence in Adamawa, Anambra, Ekiti, Kaduna, Kano, Lagos, Plateau, Rivers.
The report further read: “Important shifts in Nigeria’s political and security context have occurred since the 2015 elections, presenting both evolving, and new, risks to the 2019 elections.
“Of all the state’s institutions, most respondents felt that peaceful elections in 2019 are contingent on the performance of Nigeria’s INEC.
“Given the relative success of the 2015 elections, they felt that INEC ought to be able to deliver credible elections again in 2019. They feared, however, that any regression from the level of performance achieved in 2015 could lead to violence because some would view the failings not as a result of incompetence but as deliberate attempts to frustrate the will of the voters.
“INEC should at least, match the standards it set in 2015, and any regression could set the stage for violence. Yet, while the potential for election violence exists, there are signs of hope. Some states have developed successful election conflict-mitigation practices. In the short amount of time remaining, INEC and the police should undertake a number of key reforms.”
“The United States, along with other international supporters of the electoral process, should also intensify their efforts to reinforce the work of these key Nigerian institutions.
“Beyond institutional support, rather than apply a conventional approach to electoral violence mitigation, donor programming should adapt to Nigeria’s current context, political shifts, and opportunities, and be sufficiently flexible to respond to the risks distinct in each of Nigeria’s states.
“In advance of the election, international diplomatic efforts to preempt electoral violence need to be intensified. Regional and international actors should convey their expectations that political parties effectively address their internal disputes, and be ready to put on notice politicians responsible for escalating these disputes,” they added
