Why We Can’t Be Silent About Threats To Voters

This week, a video that has since gone viral showed armed thugs attacking a meeting of the Accord Party in Kuje, the headquarters of the Kuje Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), forcing participants to flee the venue.

Chaos overtook the crowd as the assailants tore through the gathering like a flash flood. Campaign banners were ripped from their posts and fluttered to the ground, while tables and chairs were splintered into jagged shards of wood. The sudden violence erupted mid-sentence, brutally cutting off the FCT Accord Party youth leader’s words and replacing them with a chorus of panicked screams.

Sources said the meeting had barely begun when the suspected thugs arrived at the venue, armed with cutlasses, and allegedly attacked participants. The video circulating on social media appeared to show participants fleeing in all directions during the attack. Another video showed banners, chairs and other campaign materials scattered and damaged.

The attack occurred just a few days after the Kuje Area Council Chairman, Samuel Shekwolo, was recorded on video telling residents they should either support the All Progressives Congress (APC) or leave the area. Shekwolo said: “It is either you are doing the APC or leave the area council.”

How many more such incidents will there be before the relevant security agencies take decisive action? Should we wait until those making these vile threats carry them out? And what, indeed, could be responsible for this apparent conspiracy of silence?

A familiar trend

As Nigeria prepares for the 2027 polls, a trend all too familiar in Nigerian politics appears to be taking shape once again: threats, intimidation, and deliberate attempts to frighten voters into supporting a particular political party.

It began with Senator Francis Fadahunsi, then Samuel Shekwolo, and now the Borno State Commissioner for Youth and Sports Development, Saina Buba. They all have one thing in common: threatening voters.

While Fadahunsi allegedly told his supporters to kill members of the Accord Party during the just-concluded Osun State governorship election, Shekwolo promised to remove from the Kuje Area Council anyone who refused to vote for the APC in the forthcoming election.

For the Borno Commissioner of Youth and Sports, however, the threat was even more bizarre. He threatened to cut off the fingers of anyone who dared to raise a finger against the APC-controlled Borno State government. He also brazenly stated that government benefits would be weaponised against non-supporters, meaning non-members of the ruling APC.

Buba’s Borno State has been ravaged by the activities of Boko Haram terrorists, a group that has repeatedly targeted young people for recruitment. This is the same state where, as you read this, over 70 schoolchildren and their teacher have been held by Boko Haram for more than 100 days.

Yet Buba chose to mothball his legendary finger-cutting talents, refusing to wield them against the true architects of terror. He wouldn’t raise a single blade to wrench those stolen children from their captors and ease their families’ agony. Instead, he stands before us now, turning his fury on innocent citizens—souls already crushed under the suffocating weight of hardship born of decades of spineless, rotting leadership.

It is absolutely mind-boggling to picture Buba in this light. Here is a man who holds the traditional title of Zanna Bulala of Borno, was a lecturer at the University of Maiduguri, shaping young minds, and served as chairman of the Maiduguri cattle market.

Defeaning silence

From Fadahunsi to Shekwolo and now Buba, the pattern is no longer merely familiar—it is chilling. What sends a deeper shiver down the spine is the deafening, complicit silence from the relevant authorities. These three individuals are bound not only by their APC membership but also by a dark, systematic campaign of intimidation, in which fear is weaponised against anyone daring enough to withhold their vote.

Why should this strike terror into the heart of every well-meaning Nigerian? These are not mere commentators; they are titans of influence, commanding vast, fiercely loyal followings who swallow their every word hook, line, and sinker. When figures of such immense power weaponise their platforms, their rhetoric becomes a tinderbox. That is precisely why the chilling threats allegedly made by this trio cannot—and must not—be dismissed as empty political theatre. They are a clear and present danger.

At the start of election campaigns in Nigeria, the peace committee, led by General Abdulsalami Abubakar, requires candidates to sign a peace accord to ensure violence-free campaigning and elections. The reason is not far-fetched. Nigeria has a troubling history of election violence.

In 2011, for instance, more than 500 people were killed, and property worth millions of naira was destroyed over three days of rioting across 12 northern states following the election. A nation with this troubling history cannot afford to look the other way while some privileged individuals threaten fire and brimstone ahead of yet another election.

That is why we cannot afford to ignore threats from Fadahunsi, Shekwolo, and Buba, whose home state of Borno has endured some of the worst violence and has continued to bear the brunt of terrorist activity for more than two decades.

The threat posed by Commissioner Buba is not merely alarming—it is an imminent, terrifying danger to public safety. As the Commissioner for Youth, this individual sits atop a societal powder keg, wielding direct influence over an entire generation of young minds.

A single reckless directive from his office could instantly mobilise hundreds of thousands of impressionable young people, weaponising them against innocent citizens and plunging communities into chaos. When a public official with this level of systemic leverage hints at unrest, it is not empty political rhetoric; it is a critical security crisis that demands immediate, aggressive intervention before the upcoming election.

Scouting for a convenient excuse

In what appears to be a failed attempt to defend Buba’s careless statement during the City Boy Movement’s North-East engagement in Maiduguri, an X user, @BashirAhmaad, said: “In all honesty, I believe the Commissioner did not mean the statement literally. It was an obvious joke made in the spirit of the event’s lively interaction, and everyone present understood it as such. There was clearly no intention to insult, threaten or make any serious statement.”

Really? So it was a joke after all? We can therefore assume the duo of Fadahunsi and Shekwolo were also joking when they issued those threats. This wasn’t just a casual joke—it was a full-blown political soap opera. When Fadahunsi and Shekwolo issued those explosive threats, the public held its breath, expecting an immediate, iron-fisted response from Nigeria’s top security apparatus.

Instead, absolute silence. The security agencies seem to have dismissed these dramatic declarations as background noise, leaving everyone to wonder whether the entire spectacle was merely a high-stakes game of political bluff.

But one thing is certain: if those making these expensive jokes were not members of the ruling party, the story surely would have been different. For APC members, it is a joke—not necessarily because it was funny, but because it came from their own party members.

These threats cannot be rationalised in any way whatsoever. To reduce them to a joke, as some APC members are now doing, is to attempt, effortlessly, to deodorise the stench oozing from an odour factory.

The nation cannot afford to wish these threats away. Those behind them must be investigated and prosecuted, even if only to deter others from following the same dangerous path. Decisive action by security agencies is already overdue, and public tolerance for delay has completely evaporated. Standing by until vile threats become violent realities is a luxury safety cannot afford, turning a passive response into complicity.

Voters must be free to choose who governs them. They must be free to support whichever party or candidate they believe represents their interests, without fear of expulsion from their communities, withdrawal of government benefits, physical violence, or even death. That, after all, is the beauty of democracy. That is why we cannot afford to remain silent about threats to voters.

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G100’s Wild Goose Chase**

The G100 initiative is gridlocked in a high-stakes standoff, suffocating under the weight of naked ambition and mutual desperation. The ongoing negotiations to forge a common presidential candidate are effectively dead on arrival. I do not see Peter Obi, whose desire for easy tickets has repeatedly led him to shy away from fierce contests, acceding to the idea of a single presidential candidate unless that candidate is Peter Obi. I do not see Atiku Abubakar, who views 2027 as his last shot at the presidency, doing otherwise. The reality is that the opposition has both the APC and its ambitions to contend with. Peter Obi and Atiku paved the way for Tinubu’s presidency in 2023. Unless something fundamental changes between now and 2027, they may well do it again.