HUMAN RIGHTS AND POLICING ELECTIONS Course 9

Course Description

The Nigeria Police and other security agencies play very significant roles in ensuring the success of our election. These roles include securing voting materials, electoral officers and candidates, maintaining peace and order during and after elections. However, the history of the involvement of security and law enforcement officials in policing elections in Nigeria is not without its sore point. There have been failures as well as successes. There is therefore need to articulate clearly the role of the police during elections and draw lessons from their engagements in previous
elections to enable us better prepare them for future policing election functions. This is the objective of this Chapter.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the United Nations Centre for Human Rights have respectively provided useful material, borne out of its extensive field experience in conducting human
rights training for law enforcement in various parts of the world. These are contained in the publications (1) Human Rights and Law Enforcement: A Trainer’s Guide on Human Rights for the Police; (2) Human Rights and
Elections: A Handbook on the Legal, Technical and Human Rights Aspects of Elections. Resources from these are recommended and some parts adapted here to aid the trainee’s understanding of the topic.

The Chapter is divided into the following Modules –

Module 1 – Human Rights Standards Relevant to Policing Elections.
Module 2 – Other Laws and Guidelines Relevant to Policing Elections.
Module 3 – Gaps in Policies / Practices and Recommendations.

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