National Peace Committee to Track Parties’ Compliance With 2027 Election Accord

By Omoyeni Ojeifo

With 2027 general election campaigns set to kick off officially tomorrow, political parties and candidates who signed the First National Peace Accord will face continuous oversight to keep their campaigns peaceful and issue-focused.

The National Peace Committee (NPC) revealed that it will deploy its Election Security Information Hub to monitor, track, and analyze incidences of political violence, voter intimidation, and electoral offenses throughout the campaign period.

Speaking on Tuesday at the Abuja signing ceremony witnessed by PerSecondNews correspondent, Asabe Uwani Ndahi, Project Manager at The Kukah Centre, emphasized that this tracking process will hold political actors accountable to their commitments.

“The true measure of the Accord will not be the signatures appended to the document, but the choices political actors make throughout the campaign period, how they speak, campaign, mobilise supporters and manage disagreements,” she said.

Ndahi, a lawyer, said the National Peace Committee would continue engaging political parties and candidates beyond the signing through preventive diplomacy, dialogue and early intervention where necessary.

“The Committee’s Election Security Information Hub will continue to monitor, verify and analyse compliance with this accord, including electoral violence, intimidation and electoral offences, to support evidence-based engagement and timely preventive action,” she said.

She noted that the committee’s approach would combine monitoring, preventive diplomacy, stakeholder engagement, citizen participation, legal compliance and evidence-based analysis throughout the electoral process.

“Our approach is therefore clear: SIGN. MONITOR. ENGAGE. The signature is only the beginning, and the real test will be the conduct of political actors throughout the campaign period,” she said.

Ndahi urged INEC to operate independently and transparently while calling on security agencies to maintain political neutrality and protect all electoral stakeholders without discrimination.

“INEC must operate freely without pressure or interference, while demonstrating neutrality and independence. Its transparency, professionalism and accountability will be essential for maintaining public confidence in the electoral process”.

She also urged political parties and candidates to focus their campaigns on records, policies, programmes and competing visions rather than personal attacks and inflammatory rhetoric.

“Nigeria deserves campaigns in which candidates challenge one another on their records, policies, programmes and vision, while citizens participate in the democratic process without fear, hate speech, threats or incitement,” Persecondnews quotes her as saying.

Ndahi stressed that the committee’s post-accord strategy would combine preventive diplomacy, stakeholder engagement, field-level monitoring and evidence-based analysis to identify threats early and support timely intervention throughout the electoral process.