Make Southeast safe for elections, stakeholders task govs

From Geoffrey Anyanwu, Enugu

Governors of the five south-eastern   states have been urged to take a pragmatic step to stem the tide of insecurity in the geo-political zone and give the people assurances of safety before and during the forthcoming general elections.

Participants at a “South East Stakeholder’s Meeting in Preparations Towards the 2023 General Elections,” organised by the Centre for Transparency Advocacy (CTA) held in Enugu at the weekend, said the present security situation in the zone calls for a decisive action of the governors who are the chief security officers of their various states.

The participants expressed fears that if nothing critical was done immediately, it might cause panic and make some people to be afraid to come out to vote during the elections, a situation they said would negatively affect the zone.

According to one of the participants, Dr.Okwuwa Charles, of Abia Governance Network whose contribution sort of summed up the others, “insecurity might go a longer way to disenfranchise people even on the Election Day because people don’t know. Somebody could be given money and he goes on social media and says there is sit-at-home on Election Day; what are we going to do?

The participants, therefore, urged the governors to speak out, take a stand and save their region especially during the forthcoming elections.

The participants also called on the security agencies to show high level of patriotism during the elections and avoid being used by anybody or authority. They also urged INEC to keep to its promise of organising free, fair and credible election.

The participants urged people of the zone to ensure they collected their Permanent Voter’s Card (PVCs) to be able to birth the much anticipated new Nigeria.

Earlier in her welcome address, the Executive Director of CTA, Faith Nwadishi, said that as an accredited Domestic Observer Group, the meeting was part of CTA’s contribution towards free, fair, peaceful, inclusive, conclusive and credible elections.

While urging all to condemn the senseless attacks on INEC offices and the destruction of their materials, she called for better synergy between the police, lead security agencies on election security and other members of the Inter-agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCESS).