The Independent National Electoral Commission and the Nigeria Police Force have vowed to take action against politicians issuing threats against opponents as activities intensify ahead of the 2027 general elections.
INEC and the police spoke with Sunday PUNCH while responding to enquiries on public concerns about rising inflammatory rhetoric by political actors across the country.
The commission said the Electoral Act empowers it to take action against indicted political parties and their candidates, while the police insisted that incitement is a criminal offence and anybody found culpable would be arrested and prosecuted.
The Executive Secretary of Yiaga Africa, Samson Itodo, and human rights lawyer, Jiti Ogunye, among others, also called on law enforcement agencies to move beyond invitations and warnings and prosecute politicians whose statements violated the law.
Findings showed that political threats had continued to feature prominently in mobilisation campaigns, with several politicians making statements that critics described as threatening, provocative or capable of inciting violence.
Threats, inflammatory remarks
One of the early statements that drew attention came from Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde, who, on April 25, warned opposition politicians against being coerced into joining the ruling party.
He spoke at the All Opposition Political Party Leaders meeting in Ibadan, where he warned those pushing politicians to defect to remember the violence associated with the political crisis of the First Republic.
Makinde said those acting “as if there’s no tomorrow” should remember that “Operation Wetie started from here. This is the same Wild Wild West.”
“Operation Wetie” refers to the political violence that engulfed Nigeria’s Western Region in the 1960s, with Ibadan becoming a major centre of the unrest.
The expression, derived from the Yoruba phrase for “wet him” or “soak it,” became associated with attacks in which political opponents, their homes and vehicles were doused with petrol and set ablaze.
Days later, on May 2, a former Secretary of the Board of Trustees of the New Nigeria Peoples Party, Buba Galadima, made another controversial statement while speaking at a stakeholders’ meeting organised by the Obi-Kwankwaso Movement in Abuja.
He urged Nigerians to go to polling units with “bottles and jerry cans of kerosene” during the 2027 elections.
Galadima said, “And during the elections, whether I am alive or dead, go to the polling centres with your bottles and jerrycans of kerosene. Either they do what is right, or we all die there. So, there will be no beneficiary.”
