The Centre for Democracy Development, CDD, has said political parties used Identity to divide voters during the March 18 polls.
Communications Lead of CDD, Armsfree Ajanaku while speaking on Arise TV on Sunday, said Identity was first featured during its framing of core issues that would shape the governorship and state assembly elections.
Abuja Inquirer reports that CDD released its analysis on issues that will likely shape the governorship polls in 14 states . It listed Identity as its number one factor among six others like insecurity, institutional preparedness, intra and inter-party disputes, voter participation and the question of personalities versus parties.
“For the typical Nigerian politician, ethnic identity is a way in which they feel that they can project themselves politically.
For instance, during the presidential elections, we saw, very long debate about zoning, also the debate around Muslim- Muslim ticket, which is a religious identity. We saw several forms of identities being bandied across and we warned at that time that these aspects of identities when politicians use them to divide the electorate, it becomes a source of conflict.”
He added that “And when it becomes a source of conflict, you are now pitting one group of people against the other and the politicians never listened. They kept on harping on where I come from, it’s our turn, and so on.
“In Lagos, this issue played out but it is not only in Lagos in some of the states in the northwest, for example, where banditry is also an issue, our research in CDD also showed that there are multiple nodes that drive the conflict industry and one of those multiple nodes is also the node of identity in terms of the ethic dichotomy between the Hausa’s and the Fulanis in a place like Zamfara.
“For instance, they also impacted in terms the way the campaigns for the governorship happened. So in that sense, identity was a divisive factor.
“It was a factor that did not remember that there are people in Lagos who are intermingled, who are brothers who have lived together in communities. So identity came and started to divide people.
“we believe in diversity. Nigerians under the Constitution can live in any part of the country. They can do their business..we also know that we should all respect each other’s sensibilities and cultures.
“But when it comes to an issue like voting, you cannot impose your agenda on the next person, it is their choice. Very disturbing situations. Like there was a local chief who called the people in the community and said, I have others from the top that you must vote for a certain party and if you don’t vote you cannot leave here.They come from the fact that the politicians refused to push a unified message”
