Elections May Not Hold In Some Areas — INEC

Mandy News sighted a publication made by Independent News regarding why 2019 elections may not hold in some part of the country’s tomorrow.

INEC Chairman

A head of day after today’s rescheduled presidential and National Assembly elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Thursday stated it would now not behavior elections in volatile regions in which safety agencies stated the protection in their officers could not be guaranteed, specifically in a few elements of the North East wherein Boko Haram insurgents had displaced lots.

It might be recalled that in 2015, the presidential election changed into shifted from February 14 to March 28, 2015 at the same time as the governorship and Assembly elections scheduled for February 28 were shifted to April eleven due to safety troubles.

Also, the convoy of Borno State governor, Kashim Shettima, was last week attacked by means of the Boko Haram splinter institution dependable to the Islamic State, West Africa Province, in Gamboru location of the state while the governor changed into on election marketing campaign.

Speaking with Daily Independent on whether or not INEC would pass ahead with the elections the next day notwithstanding the security situation inside the North-East, Festus Okoye, National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee of INEC, said at the same time as the election would move in advance as scheduled, it would not danger the lives of its officers and ad-hoc team of workers via posting them to areas where their safety couldn’t be guaranteed.

He said: “We received’t simply circulate ad-hoc personnel arbitrarily to locations in which we agree with they may be very susceptible or locations we consider that if we install them to, they’re possibly to come to harm.

“We had been working with the Interagency Consultative Committee on Election Security to map out locations that we regard as flashpoints, places that have severe troubles of insurgency and locations that we’ve got camps of IDPs.

“Wherever it is not possible to conduct elections and the safety organizations are saying they cannot protect the ones areas, of direction we gained’t behavior elections in those areas.

“The implication is that it’s miles either the humans are completely displaced or in part displaced.

“It isn’t always as if we are oblivious of some of the safety demanding situations however we’re working with all of these organs and the resident electoral commissioners in those states that have challenges of lack of confidence are in touch with all of the critical stakeholders in terms of where it’s far viable to conduct elections and locations where it is not possible to conduct elections, or where the registration areas ought to be moved or adjusted to make sure that human beings vote.”

“Wherever it’s far feasible for humans to vote, we are able to ensure that the human beings are not disenfranchised.

“So, we are decided to make certain that every eligible Nigerian votes in this election unless it turns into practically impossible to behavior elections in some places, wherein case the registration regions will be adjusted to enable human beings to vote. Wherever it is at ease to conduct elections, we’ll behavior elections in those areas.”

On the demanding situations that may be skilled via internally displaced people (IDPs), Okoye said: “Before this era, we advanced a framework for voting through people who are internally displaced and thereafter we issued a law and tips for vote casting by using internally displaced individuals (IDPs).

“Up to this particular period, we’ve diagnosed IDPs in 15 states however as we are transferring toward the elections, it is able to cause upscale.

“What we’ve got said is that we’ve a information of all the men and women who’re internally displaced in various parts of the u . S . A . In Borno, Yobe, and Benue.

“During the Continuous Voter Registration exercising, those who lost their PVCs and whose names are inside the voter sign up, we printed their PVCs and surpassed over to them. Those that have now not registered earlier than, we registered them and also gave them PVCs.

“We recognized the camps of the IDPs and elections could be performed in the ones camps primarily based at the registration regions of all of the humans inside the camps.”