Cohort members supported by the European Union under the EU Support to Democratic Governance in Nigeria (EU-SDGN) Programme joined other civil society organisations in an engagement with the Inspector-General of Police, IGP Olatunji Rilwan Disu, psc, at the Force Headquarters in Abuja, ahead of the Osun State Governorship Election.
The engagement provided an opportunity for civil society representatives to share findings from pre-election monitoring, incident tracking, public perception surveys and field assessments, with discussions focusing on rising political tensions, electoral violence, security preparedness and public confidence in the neutrality of security agencies.
The civil society organisations presented a consolidated assessment of the pre-election environment based on six months of independent monitoring. The assessment identified 13 of Osun State’s 30 Local Government Areas as high-risk, with reported killings, violent attacks and heightened political tensions. It also recorded 34 known fatalities across 44 incidents between June 2025 and June 2026.
Members of the EU-supported cohort noted that the Osun election carries significance beyond the state as the last major election before the 2027 general election. They stressed that securing the election requires not only preventing violence, but also ensuring that security operations are professional, impartial, proportionate and trusted by citizens.
“Osun is both an election-security test and a public-trust test,” the civil society delegation stated, stressing that security agencies must demonstrate “impartiality, proportionality, accountability and operational readiness”.
Public confidence in the neutrality of security agencies featured prominently in the discussions. A survey of 669 residents referenced by the delegation found that roughly nine in ten respondents expressed concerns about aggressive use of force and the perceived partiality of security agents.
The delegation warned that perceptions of bias could themselves become a security risk, particularly where legitimate security operations are interpreted through a partisan lens. It therefore called on security agencies to ensure that neutrality is not only maintained but made “visible and verifiable”.
“The credibility of the election will depend not only on the absence of violence, but also on public confidence that security institutions enforce electoral laws impartially, protect political actors and citizens equitably, and respond to threats without fear, favour or political interference,” the delegation stated.
The civil society representatives called for risk-specific security deployment based on the threat profile of different locations rather than a single operational approach across the state. They also recommended clear rules of engagement, stronger early-warning and incident-response mechanisms, intelligence-led action against organised violence and threat networks, and improved real-time coordination and public communication.
The delegation further called for a clear communication channel between the Police and accredited election observers to support timely information-sharing, escalation of security incidents and accountability before, during and after the election.
For the EU-supported cohort members, a peaceful and credibly secured Osun election would help strengthen public confidence in Nigeria’s electoral process ahead of the 2027 general election.
As the delegation emphasised, the task before security institutions extends beyond preventing violence. It is also about ensuring that citizens can participate freely and confidently, and demonstrating that Nigeria’s security institutions can protect the electoral process without becoming actors in it.