CLEEN Foundation – We Are Already Strategising For Ondo, Edo Elections

 

By Lazarus Zakaa, Abuja

CLEEN Foundation is a Nigerian based Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) established in 1998 and working to promote public safety, security and access to justice. In this interview with Francis Onoiribholo, Ruth Olofin, the Programme Manager of the Foundation said the Foundation is putting in place critical activities and enlightenment arrangements on election security for the forthcoming Edo and Ondo States governorship elections to avoid the electoral violence as witnessed in the Kogi state governorship elections. Excerpts:

Is CLEEN foundation restricted to only police arm of law enforcement agencies?

No, we are not restricted to only the Police, we also work with other security and law enforcement institutions including the Military. For instance, we have a project that we are currently implementing with the Armed Forces of Nigeria which is targeted at fostering civil military relations between civilians and the military in Nigeria.

The unbalanced relationship and perceived mistrust between civilians and the military forms the idea behind this project to build bridges especially in light of the current security challenges bedeviling the country.

However, in the context of democracy and democratization and civil rulership, the military is accountable to civil authority. Thus, in view of that, both parties should have common understanding and mutual respect especially within the context of heightened insecurity and criminality across the country. They should in fact be partners and should leverage on the strengths they both have in securing the country better.

There are quite a lot of other projects and initiatives being run by the Foundation. We have projects around human rights and countering violent extremism designed for the North East. This project is focused on assessing the compliance of state security actors to human rights principles in their counter insurgency efforts in the Northeast.

A strand of it looks at improving internal and external police accountability systems working cooperatively with police oversight bodies in Nigeria. There are also projects on anti-corruption and accountability targeted at ensuring transparent and accountable governance. Thus, our work is not limited to law enforcement agencies but the entire spectrum of public safety and security and good governance.

How are you pursuing the issue of police extortion which has now graduated into compelling victims to go to ATM to get money and all that, in the name of looking for the yahoo boys?

There is really a challenge with that kind of policing and police service delivery. At the level of CLEEN, we are responding to these issues through capacitating the Police who are the suppliers of policing services and raising awareness of the limits of their policing powers.

One of such interventions is through this training programs. We collaborate with demand driven civil society organizations to sensitize and issue out our positions from time to time when there are infractions between the citizens and the Police on cases of police brutality.

These are also reflected in our approach to programming.

The training we are doing for instance today has provisions that are related to all these policing acts that are not acceptable and against the provisions. Following suspects to ATM or carrying POS for extortion are certainly not acceptable and not in line with democratic principles of policing.

How do you intend to involve politicians in your programme especially the need to promote election security to check abuse of voters’ right by thugs sponsored by politicians?

Currently we don’t work directly with politicians as we have other non-governmental organizations that are working closely with politicians. However, indirectly, we reach them through our security threats assessments ahead of any elections to share findings about the views of the public on election security and to appeal to politicians to play fair and avoid the use of violence in politicking and in the elections.

The media has been one of our key partners that have supported us in publishing our reports giving opportunities for Nigerians to be aware of security threats one of which is the activities of politicians. Our Election Security Management Projects are focused on mapping risk factors ahead of elections.

For instance, the Edo State election coming up sometime this year, ahead of that election, we carry out threat assessments to know factors that are likely to cause violence in the upcoming election, and for the 2019 general elections we did a national survey that we went around asking people questions, respondents of course highlighted threats including the activities of politicians that are likely to cause violence.

So, we present these findings ahead of the election publicly so that people are abreast of what is happening and then you can stay safe.

Our threat assessment is also useful for the police especially to know the hot spot areas in Edo State where violence may occur to aid the deployment of man power towards such areas. So our intervention is coming from the public safety and security perspectives.We are not directing interfacing with politicians.

Source Daily Independent