CO-oxfam Strengthening mechanisms for early response to electoral violence.Nigeria is a country blessed with both human and natural resources. This is seen in the huge production of crude oil which places the country as the sixth world largest producer in the world these are coupled with untapped natural resources in most of the country. A few among the several natural resources in the country are limestone, columbite, precious stones, fertile land, water bodies, bitumen, kaolin, coal and rubber. These deposits have increased the country’s foreign earning due to export activities. The human capital resource of the country is quite enormous of which the youth who are the productive segment of the population form one of the highest proportion of the entire population.

Despite the abundance of these mineral and human resources, there has been a major concern of equity in terms of the distribution of resources among othercomponents of the state. This has given rise to untold hardships seen in a great quantum of poverty, destitution, poor health care,unemployment, trafficking in persons, and poor infrastructural development in the country among many other social problems confronting the nation. Notably, in the North East, the emergence of Boko Haram insurgency has been largely tied to these concerns as the youths were negatively engaged in perpetrating the dangerous acts along side the insurgent groups largely due to restiveness within their communities.

Also, the menace of bad governance has increased largelymore because citizens do not see themselves engage in somecommunity development activities that can improve their lives. Rather, it is misconceived that it is only the responsibilities of the government and the purpose for which they were elected into office. However, democracy thrives better where there are responsibleand active followership that are expected to support and assess government policies and projects through self-conscious community mobilization and an informed mind for self-reliance and development.

Painfully speaking, there is a chunk of Nigerian youths whom have become cheap tools in the hands of extremists, politicians and mischief makers. They are instigated and cajoled to destroy lives and vandalize property and also participate in violent and other criminal activities thereby discouraging economic activities for the benefit of all. Aside being used for violence, they have played negative roles at different levels of electioneering in the country. They are used as political thugs,ballot box snatching and unlawful thump printing for the purpose of rigging, intimidation of other aspirants and voters alike. This is exemplified in the contemporary security analysis in Nigeria, for example, in Rivers state, on 8th December, 2022 somethugs invaded the residence of People’s Democratic Party (PDP) presidential campaign manager, Senator Lee Maeba. On 14th December, some unidentified gunmen shot and wounded a local PDP youth leader. In Imo state, three attacks on electoralcommission premises were reported between 1st – 12th December, while during a different attack on 16th December, a gunmen killed a Labour Party candidate and a memeber of a state parliament, Christopher Eleghu. (crisisgroup.org).   In the North West and North Central, attacks continued despite military operations. In Katsina state, gunmen attacked a mosque in Funtua area on 3rd December, abducting over a dozen worshippers. In Kaduna state, the Nigerian Air Force on 1st and 4th December targeted some groups’ hideouts in Igabi, Birnin Gwari and Giwa areas, inflicting “heavy casualties”. Also in Kaduna between 15th - 18th  December, gunmen killedaround 38 people in Kaura area, and on 25thof December 45 persons were abducted in Kajuru area. Likewise, is the cases of disruptions and abuse of citizens at voters registration centres in the Southwest region. These have hindered the emergence of credible leaders who will be responsible and accountable to the people.  This has been perpetuated without recourse to the common good ofall which is expected to be corrected through civic education that teaches rights, responsibilities and obligations.

Mostly, the problems of bad governance, insensitive and uninformed citizens have created myriads of daunting challenges to our growingdemocracy and has retarded development and good governance. This situation of poor knowledge on civic education is worsened by the poor reading culture and exclusionof vulnerable groups in education, economic empowerment, and governance. This is another reason for the importance of the civic education and transformative leadership approaches to increasing the knowledge andunderstanding the citizens civic roles and improvedlevel of engagement.

Ignorance is abig factor that we need to contend with. Undoubtedly, is the fact that some representatives do not perceive themselves as being accountable to their constituenciesexcept to donate and commission projects. Civic rights and obligation goes beyond donation and commission of projects to physical engagment with the members of their constituencies. Bad governancehas led to the increasing diversion of public resources from the intended cause to parochial and sectional interests. While a meager of it is used for white elephant projects that will never seethe light of the day.

Civic education helps in arousing the interestand motivates the public to continuously and effectively participate in strengthening democracy. There is no gain saying that Nigerians especially the youth and women need to begin to redirect and re-channel their strengths to positive and developmental engagements that will improve the quality of good governance and active citizens. Some of the bad experiences can be effectively correctedthrough civic education and transformative leadership for women's rights approaches as the axiom says “knowledge is power”.

As much asgovernment cannot be exonerated from the problems mentioned above, thecitizens also need to understand that government cannot do everything, but they need to do something - self-help project – for themselves and by themselves. In societies where there is good understanding of civic rights and responsibility, development israpid, engaging representatives is integral to them; there is wide roomfor political participation and engagement. As such, every election comes with its own challenges and intricacies; therefore, civiceducation remains a pivotal process in understanding the rights, responsibilities and obligations of all.

In Adamawa state like other states,existing data showed that youth and women do not have sufficient understanding of civic education which has a hightendency of promoting good governance. We knowthis will enable the youth and women to positively participate in the electioneering processesand attainment of inclusive governance. This will strengthen the Nigerian democratic processes and institutions like other developed democracies especially nowthat the state is transiting out of years of siege extremists groups.