An election can be compromised before a single ballot is cast. It happens when a citizen decides that attending a rally is too dangerous, when a volunteer removes a party badge to get home safely, when a candidate abandons a community because the road belongs to armed opponents. The eventual count may be accurate. The choice it records has already been diminished.
That is the danger in Nigeria’s gathering political violence. As the 2027 elections approach, attacks on convoys and gatherings threaten to make fear an unacknowledged participant in the contest. Each assault reaches beyond its immediate victims. It tells everyone watching that political conviction may carry a physical price, and that the state may be unable or unwilling to guarantee their safety.
On November 4, Peter Obi’s convoy was attacked in Calabar during his visit for a Nigeria Democratic Congress town hall. Police reported damaged windscreens and announced an arrest. The following day brought reports of an attack on the African Democratic Congress presidential campaign convoy in Kebbi. Amnesty International subsequently condemned that violence, citing its analysis of footage and describing assaults on campaigners and destruction of media equipment.
On November 7, reports emerged of suspected thugs attacking NDC supporters at a rally in Delta State and damaging a vehicle. That account remains developing. In Sokoto, the Department of State Services said two operatives were injured while protecting ADC governorship candidate Mannir Daniya from a mob on October 31. The service also denied allegations that it was organising anti-ADC protests.
These incidents require separate investigations, not a single partisan verdict. An arrest is not a conviction. An attack does not establish its sponsor’s identity. But uncertainty about responsibility cannot excuse indifference to the harm. Authorities must establish who did what, while protecting those whose right to participate is under threat.
The scale warrants urgency. In findings reported on November 6, the Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room recorded 70 physical election-related attacks across 19 states and the Federal Capital Territory between January 1 and October 27. Twenty incidents were associated with 27 deaths. Behind that tally are families for whom the election season has already acquired an irreversible meaning. Their losses cannot be relegated to the background noise of political competition.
No national conspiracy is needed for these attacks to have a national consequence. Different perpetrators, acting for varied reasons, can collectively narrow the space in which citizens make political choices. If intimidation keeps an opponent out of a community, frightens away volunteers, or disrupts campaign coverage, it can confer an advantage even without changing a single ballot.
This is why impunity is so dangerous. When violence delivers a political benefit at little apparent cost, it teaches the next organiser considering the same tactic. Condemnation alone does not alter that calculation. An attacker who hears official outrage but sees no credible prospect of prosecution may conclude that the outrage is simply part of the ritual.
Our language can assist this evasion. Describing every assault as a “clash” implies a symmetry that evidence may not support. Sometimes rival groups fight; sometimes one group attacks another. Responsible reporting must establish the difference. Fairness requires accuracy about responsibility, not an automatic division of blame.
Nigeria has paid dearly for failing to contain political violence. In the old Western Region, the bitter struggle for power and disputed 1965 elections produced the violence remembered as Operation Wetie. Homes and businesses burned as political antagonism overwhelmed institutional restraint. The crisis contributed to the First Republic’s erosion before the January 1966 coup.
It would be historically careless to draw a straight line from that regional crisis to the civil war. Coups, massacres, and constitutional breakdown shaped the catastrophe that followed. Yet the warning remains: when elections cease to command confidence and the law cannot restrain political aggression, grievances accumulate outside institutions built to resolve them. Violence then deepens the very distrust that makes further violence possible.
The aftermath of the 2011 presidential election offers a more immediate lesson. Human Rights Watch reported more than 800 deaths in three days across 12 northern states, with over 65,000 people displaced. Protests by supporters of defeated candidate Muhammadu Buhari degenerated into riots and sectarian killings. Christians and Muslims suffered. Homes and places of worship were destroyed; national service personnel were among those killed. An electoral grievance became a communal catastrophe.
The pattern persisted in 2019. Human Rights Watch documented military personnel shooting civilians in Rivers State and attacks on voters, election officials and journalists in Rivers and Kano. This exposes a particularly corrosive possibility: institutions entrusted with protecting the contest can themselves become sources of fear. Accountability must therefore reach uniformed personnel as well as party enforcers. A voter threatened by an armed official has little reason to draw comfort from the number of security officers deployed. What matters is whose rights those officers actually protect.
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In February 2023, Bina Jennifer Efidi went to vote in Surulere, Lagos, and was struck during an attack on her polling unit. Human Rights Watch recorded injuries around her eye and cheek. After receiving stitches, she returned to cast her ballot. Her determination deserves respect, but the story should trouble us more than it inspires us. A citizen should not have to return from hospital to complete an ordinary democratic act. Celebrating her courage must never obscure the failure that made such courage necessary.
Kenya’s disputed 2007 presidential election was followed by violence that killed at least 1,133 people and displaced hundreds of thousands. Rival leaders eventually entered a negotiated governing arrangement. Bereaved families could negotiate no comparable settlement for their losses. In Côte d’Ivoire, Laurent Gbagbo’s refusal to relinquish power after the 2010 election, despite internationally recognised results favouring Alassane Ouattara, precipitated a crisis in which Human Rights Watch recorded at least 3,000 deaths.
These experiences are warnings, not predictions. Nigeria is not condemned to repeat them. Their value lies in showing how quickly a struggle over office can acquire ethnic, religious, and communal meanings that its original protagonists can no longer contain. Prevention matters precisely because escalation is neither inevitable nor easily reversible.
Nigeria also offers a counterexample. On March 31, 2015, Goodluck Jonathan telephoned Muhammadu Buhari to concede defeat before the winner was formally declared. Both men urged restraint among their supporters. That choice did not erase every failing of the election, but it helped make a peaceful transfer possible. It demonstrated that political leadership could interrupt escalation rather than merely explain it afterwards. The lesson for today’s contenders is practical: supporters take cues from leaders, and accepting the limits of ambition can preserve the country.
The burden of prevention is shared, but public authority carries a special obligation. President Bola Tinubu and governors must ensure that state institutions protect political competitors, including those campaigning to remove them. The safety of an opposition gathering reflects democratic governance. Citizens do not surrender their claim to protection when they reject the governing party.
Opposition leaders must meet their own obligations. They should document attacks, demand investigations, and challenge official failures without presenting unproven sponsorship allegations as established facts or using them to justify retaliation. Every party must discipline those who incite or organise violence. A peaceful speech means little if the speaker continues to reward the people responsible for intimidation.
Enforcement must become visible and credible. Police should publish progress on reported attacks, distinguishing allegations from arrests, charges, and concluded cases. Investigations must follow evidence to anyone who commissioned or financed violence, rather than end with those caught carrying it out. Witness protection and support for victims are essential. An announced arrest followed by months of silence does little to restore confidence.
Protection must also reach beyond prominent candidates. Drivers, journalists, volunteers, and ordinary supporters often face danger without access to escorts or national attention. Security arrangements should cover routes to and from gatherings, with accessible reporting channels and prompt responses to threats. Public safety must not become a pretext for closing opposition venues while favoured parties assemble freely.
Peace commitments need consequences. The National Peace Committee should press parties to account publicly for reported violations and the disciplinary action taken. Religious and traditional leaders should defend peaceful participation irrespective of affiliation. Citizens should not have to belong to the locally dominant party to enjoy their community’s protection.
Frightened people should not be lectured about courage. Staying away from a rally may be a rational response to a failure of protection. Democracy cannot depend on ordinary Nigerians repeatedly risking their lives to exercise rights that public institutions are supposed to secure.
The test before 2027 is therefore immediate: can a Nigerian support an unpopular candidate, attend a lawful meeting and return home safely? Until that freedom is dependable, the promise of a credible election for every eligible citizen remains incomplete. The gathering inferno can still be contained, but only if political leaders recognise that the opponent they protect today is part of the country they hope to govern tomorrow.
Dr Dakuku Peterside is a management and leadership turnaround expert.