By Kunle Kalejaye
In a healthy democracy, political campaigns are won with manifestos, debates, and persuasion. In a statement personally signed on November 13, the President rightly defined the ideal tone: “Our campaigns should be about issues, a contestation of ideas that promote the welfare of our people and the progress of our country.”
In Nigeria, however, campaigns are too often contested with cutlasses, shattered glass, broken limbs, burnt vehicles, and murder. With just two months before citizens vote in January 2027, the campaign trail has traded the power of the ballot for the terror of the street.
In recent weeks alone, armed hoodlums stormed an Ikeja event centre in Lagos, smashing glass and injuring journalists and supporters ahead of Peter Obi’s Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) town hall. Days earlier in Asaba, Delta State, a political procession turned deadly, leaving one dead and five injured. In Katsina, thugs ambushed All Progressives Congress (APC) supporters, injuring several and torching a vehicle, while similar violence scarred Enugu, Nasarawa, and Ekiti.
Alarmed by the spreading violence and unwarranted bloodshed, the President condemned the attacks and ordered security forces to throw the book at violators, declaring: “Violence should never have a place in our political campaigns as we move toward the 2027 general elections.”
What makes this violence exasperating is that Nigeria already has its toughest legal framework against political thuggery. In February, the Electoral Act, 2026 raised penalties for campaign violence five-fold. Under Section 97, offenders face up to a ₦5 million fine or 12 months in prison, while sponsoring parties face a ₦10 million fine. Section 96 sets identical penalties for threatening rhetoric, reinforcing Section 227 of the 1999 Constitution and Section 78 of the new Act against quasi-military groups. Yet thugs operate with brazen confidence because Nigeria lacks a truly independent body to investigate and prosecute electoral crimes.
Currently, enforcement falls into an institutional void. INEC is overwhelmed by logistics and lacks investigative muscle, while the Police and Attorneys-General answer to the executive branch. Expecting government-controlled prosecutors to pursue ruling or influential political sponsors is naive.
The result is impunity.
In Lagos, street battles raged for over an hour before police arrived. Even when suspects are arrested, like the 14 apprehended in Katsina, cases stall after initial headlines, leaving financiers untouched. According to a September 2026 Yiaga Africa survey, 61 percent of Nigerians, and 78 percent in the North-East, fear violence could stop them from voting in 2027.
Theresa Odinkalu-Okoro, Executive Director of the African Centre for Security, Governance and Development (CentreSGD), highlighted data from the CLEEN Foundation (a Nigerian non-governmental organisation founded in January 1998 to advance public safety, security, and justice reform via research and advocacy) Election Security Threat Assessment showing 70 physical election-related attacks across 19 states and the FCT between January 1 and October 27, 2026, resulting in 27 deaths, with Kaduna, Edo, and Enugu identified as primary flashpoints.
Both the Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room (November 5) and CentreSGD (November 9) warned that these escalating attacks threaten the credibility of the 2027 elections.
The President has authorised security agencies “to confront thuggery and other anti-social and anti-democratic activities with full force.” Yet presidential orders, House hearings, and INEC press warnings will not disarm a single thug. The National Assembly and Presidency must urgently establish an Office of the Independent Electoral Counsel, modeled on the proposed Electoral Offences Commission, with security of tenure, independent funding, and investigative powers insulated from executive interference. Protected from political removal, this office could take over dockets from Katsina, Lagos, Enugu, and Delta, trace financiers, and work with INEC to invoke Section 78 against offending parties and Section 140 at election tribunals to nullify violence-tainted victories.
Nigeria does not need new prohibitions. Between the heavy fines and jail terms of the Electoral Act, 2026, life imprisonment or the death penalty for arson and murder under the Criminal and Penal Codes, and strict custodial penalties for online incitement under the Cybercrimes Act, the legal teeth already exist. There is also the political will as evinced in the very strong condemnation of political violence by the President and the prosecutorial nod given for the prosecution of offenders. What we urgently need is an Independent Prosecutor with the institutional courage to bite, transforming our elections into peaceful exercises where every Nigerian can vote without fear.
Asiwaju Kalejaye (SAN) is founder and chairman of Eagle 102.5 FM, Ilese-Ijebu
