The National Peace Committee (NPC), chaired by former Head of State Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, has revealed it faced significant pressure to intervene in the 2023 Presidential Elections.
The NPC’s 106-page report, titled “Nigeria’s Pursuit of Electoral Compliance: National Peace Committee NPC 2023 General Elections Report,” discloses how the committee was urged to compel the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to halt result collation or cancel the election entirely.
The report highlights, “As the election day progressed, criticisms and counter criticisms became abundant. The NPC was already being faced with a flurry of phone calls and the need to call INEC to order.” It details that the committee was “flooded with requests for intervention” from various quarters. “Some of the requests wanted the NPC to prevail on INEC to stop collating election results because there were gross violations and lack of compliance with the electoral act,” the report states.
A particularly contentious issue was the 25% threshold for the Federal Capital Territory. “Some analysts asked that the final election result should not be announced because the presumptive president-elect did not score the required 25% as stated in the electoral act,” the report notes. This led to demands for a possible runoff.
The Centre for Reform and Public Advocacy criticized the NPC’s silence, stating, “The silence of the National Peace Committee (NPC) was deafening despite the avalanche of election petitions and likely far-reaching outcomes that could follow the decisions.”
The NPC’s report emphasizes its limited role, stating, “The interventions provided by the NPC are purely and squarely moral.” The committee’s mandate is described as one of “moral intervention,” focusing on promoting peace and encouraging adherence to the rule of law, without any authority to arrest or prosecute violators. The report underscores that the NPC’s role is to “encourage, persuade and appeal to political actors, community leaders and other stakeholders on the importance of peace.”
This limited mandate has led to questions about the significance of the NPC’s role, with the report acknowledging, “Most people are not aware that the NPC provides only a moral intervention,” which has led to skepticism about its impact.
