Over the past month, South Saharan Social Development Organization, SSDO, has been implementing Project 100 – Rural Election Drive. The project aimed to sensitize and trigger the rural community dwellers, who are often less interested in good governance based on their predicament. The project enlightened communities and helped them see beyond their immediate challenges: poverty, lack of infrastructure and water… Highlighting the need to be involved in the election process, as it was their best chance at changing the status quo.

Often, you realize rural communities are disenfranchised largely due to a lack of information on what to do at the right time. Hence, we used town criers based in these communities to be a constant source of information to community dwellers and help them see the need to be accountable citizens. We can say that this effort has yielded enormous results as there’s been increased PVC pickup across the communities.

However, we got disturbing feedback from town criers in some communities, which have been an albatross plaguing the political space since the return to democratic rule: election-related violence. In certain communities, town criers were chased, embarrassed and prevented from disseminating information in their communities. With the hooligans saying they don’t want anything to do with politics or thinking, the town criers were campaigning for a particular candidate.

Over the years, we have seen how the bitter struggle for power by the elites has resulted in violence, loss of lives, and properties in different election cycles. Violence has been weaponized as a tool to neutralize opponents and destabilize voters and the opposition’s performance at the polls. The country’s dire economic situation, inequality, perceived injustice, and high youth unemployment have made it easy for people, especially youths, to become tools to cause mayhem for these politicians at the promise of a taste of power or a better life.

It is important for all stakeholders to commit to its eradication by advocating

#ZeroElectionViolence.

Do you think violence will disrupt the 2023 elections?

Yes

No