The national security adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki, (rtd) has said that Third World countries including Nigeria cannot do without the presence of security personnel at this time.
He said such became imperative due to the need to safeguard elections, protect electoral materials, persons and even voters.
According to him, this was based on the countries’ past experiences where hooligans, rented by politicians were bent on creating confusion through ballot box snatching or stuffing of ballot boxes.
The NSA spoke in Jos yesterday at the 3rd Eminent Expert Group Meeting at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru near Jos.
The meeting, which has the theme “Elections and Security in Nigeria: Towards an Effective National Security,” had in attendance experts in electoral law, foremost traditional rulers, policy makers in both security and political spheres as well as participants of the Senior Executive Course of the institute.
Reacting to criticisms of presence of federal operatives at polling stations, he noted that orderliness, elimination of all forms of thuggery and other electoral malpractices in Nigeria’s electoral system must be checked hence the need for tight security.
He said that elections were easier to conduct in societies where majority of the people were literate and where people had access to the print and electronic media.
“Some commentators have argued that security agencies should have no role to play during elections, as in the case in mature democracies such as USA, UK, India and Australia, but these commentators tend to forget that the democratic culture is a learning curve.
“Counties have to start somewhere and gradually improve on their past experience, to the extent that citizens would require little or no coaching in how to take part in elections.
“But this is not the case in many Third World countries where the electoral body and politicians are relied upon to guide people on what to do”, he stated.
Prof. Dakum Shown, Chairman of the occasion and a former board chairman of NIPSS, bemoaned the scrapping of the Centre for Democratic Studies, CDS, saying that the services of the centre was needed now more than ever before.
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