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From Noah Ebije, Kaduna
The Birnin-Gwari Emirate Progressive Union (BEPU) of Kaduna State has called on relevant authorities to assist the locals in reaching out to terrorists to allow the IDPs vote on election day, as well as to ease movement of electoral officers and materials in the area.
In a statement on Saturday by the BEPU Chairman, Ishaq Usman Kasai, unless the terrorists are pacified, the 50,000 IDPs in the affected communities will not be able to vote in the forthcoming elections.
Kasai pointed out that one of the polling units in the area was among the 240 polling units cancelled by INEC across the country due to insecurity.
“We are aware of the arrangements being made locally to address these challenges especially by possibly establishing contact with the respective terrorist groups in the most hostile areas in order to allow successful conduct of the 2023 Elections in the area. It is noted that, this same approach was adopted successfully during the Census Enumeration Area Demarcation (EAD) that took place recently where, with the permission of the bandits, all the areas were visited by the Census functionaries and demarcated.
“We therefore observe that, based on experience, only local arrangements through diplomatic means in form of reaching to these terrorist groups for negotiation diplomatically could allow the 2023 Elections to hold successfully in about ten (10)political Wards with hundreds of Poling Units (PU) in Birnin-Gwari Local Government Area.
“For now, due to security problem, INEC has already cancelled one PU in Gayam Ward of the LG. This cancelled PU is among the 240 PUs recently cancelled by INEC in Nigeria due to high security threat.
“We are therefore advising the Authorities to engage relevant stakeholders especially community leaders in all arrangements for success of carrying out 2023 general Elections in Birnin-Gwari Local Government Area.
“It is a known fact that Birnin-Gwari Local Government Area of Kaduna State is facing security challenge that is affecting many aspects of its development including transportation, farming, education, economy, business among others; where about one hundred (100) communities are sacked and about fifty thousand (50,000) persons rendered internally displaced (IDPs) across various communities.
“As we are approaching 2023 General Elections, our major concern is our people including the internally displaced persons (IDPs) to be given opportunity to exercise their franchise at their respective secondary locations by voting their choices in the election without any fear or intimidation.
“At this point, we wish to commend the effort made in this regard by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in relocating some of the Poling Units (PU) from the sacked communities to various points where the respective eligible voters relocated and are residing as IDPs. This will, indeed, go along way in providing them an opportunity to exercise their franchise.
“The second issue is on facilitating movements of the Election Officials and materials on the Election Day to various units in the Local Government especially to areas where security problems are high, such as the Eastern and Western parts of of the Local Government.
“There are eleven (11) political wards in Birnin-gwari and ten (10) of these wards are facing security challenges that if measures are not proactively taken will hinder the election processes,” the statement said.
