Buhari, Atiku to sign another peace accord
- President Buhari and other presidential candidates are expected to sign another peace accord
- The peace committee said this was to foster peace ahead of the election
- The peace accord is to make candidates accept results of elections
The chairman of the National Peace Committee and former head of state, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, has said that all presidential candidates will sign another peace accord in February.
According to Daily Trust, Abdulsalami made this known in Kaduna on Wednesday, January 30.
Abdulsalami who was represented by the director, National Peace Committee secretariat, Reverend Father Atta Barkindo, said the signing of another peace accord, was “to avert election violence as currently being experienced in Sudan and other African countries.”
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He said: “Since last year, the commission has had series of meetings with critical stakeholders and that is why on 11th December, 2018 we signed the accord for peaceful conduct and rallies.
“Next month, we are also going to sign another with all the presidential candidates in terms of accepting the outcome of the elections if they are adjudged to be free, fair and credible.”
Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna asked stakeholders to be careful of “politicians hiding their children at home or either taking them to Abuja or Europe during election periods and instead engage children of the poor to give them peanuts and drugs pushing them into mayhem and destruction and tell such politicians to send their children on such errands and the story changes.
“The UN and National Peace Committee are in Kaduna because there is a reasonable belief of electoral violence in the state, but it is our duty as stakeholders to disappoint them by not engaging in any election violence. Pre-election period, campaign period and post-elections period violence is usually induced by politicians who give youths money and drugs to harass political opponents which results to violence.
“The control of these periods is in our hands as politicians and unless we decide to work together to end the menace, it will spread. I call on community leaders not to allow politicians use youths as thugs during elections due to its dire consequences."
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Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that the US warned against violence during the February 2019 general elections in Nigeria, saying it will “remain intensely focused” on the elections.
US assistant secretary, Bureau of African Affairs, Tibor Nagy, Jr., stated this in his testimony to the US House of Representatives, Sub-Committee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organisations.
Nagy shared many of the areas of concern that the legislators had voiced, assuring that the US was monitoring and messaging both publicly and privately, to mitigate a few key areas of risk that could jeopardise a free and fair process.
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Source: Legit.ng
