North-East voters need security, shelter before election – Stakeholders osundefender.org/?p=195918 Survivors of deadly Boko Haram attacks and other residents of the North-Eastern states of Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa, where insurgency has killed many and displaced thousands, say people with no assurance of food, shelter and security cannot vote next year, JESUSEGUN ALAGBE writes As politicians and their parties take their campaign trains to almost every nook and cranny of the country ahead of next year’s general elections, there seems to be no need for them to consider taking their teams to the North-Eastern part of the country where violence resulting from the persistent Boko Haram attacks has led to the deaths and displacement of thousands of Nigerians. Recently, the Director-General of the National Emergency Management Agency, Mr Sani Sidi, stated that between January and March 2014, more than three million Nigerians were facing humanitarian crisis arising from the Boko Haram insurgency in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states – and that about 250,000 persons were either living in refugee camps or with relations and other places presumed to be safe havens. Sidi said that of about three million victims of the Boko Haram insurgency, Borno State had the highest figure of 1,304,393 persons, followed by Adamawa State with 1,086,126 persons and Yobe with 771,368 people. A sizeable number of these Nigerians are over 18 years old, which qualifies them as eligible voters for elections in the country. As of April 2014, not less than 613,729 Nigerians were also said to have been displaced in the past one year alone and were staying in various camps across the country. Of this figure, 207,583 were women, while the rest were men. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees also said that over 60,000 Nigerians had crossed the country’s borders to seek refuge in the neighbouring Cameroon, Chad and Niger since May 2013. Expectedly, as a result of the security crisis in the North-Eastern states, many residents of the region and political analysts have expressed pessimism over the conduct of the 2015 elections in the states – an action that may disenfranchise thousands of eligible voters in the zone of exercising their civic rights. When the Boko Haram insurgents attacked National Emergency Management , Adamawa State on October 30, 2014, one of the thousands of residents that fled to Cameroon on foot, a Catholic cleric simply identified as Rev. Yakubu, told Saturday PUNCH on the telephone that he was lucky to have escaped the attack. Yakubu said, “Nobody here is thinking of the elections coming up next year. Our lives are more important than the elections. We want safety first, then elections later. Even if they bring the polling booths, nobody will go out to vote.” Seeing thousands of Nigerians who fled Mubi to Cameroon died of hunger and sickness, he added that “2015 is the last thing on the minds of many of us here.” He said, “I saw multitude of Nigerians running for their lives – from Mubi to Cameroon on foot. Many women abandoned their children while scampering into safety. There was no water, no food. Thousands fainted, hundreds died. Thousands are still missing. Right now, I can assure you that we are not bothered about next year’s elections.” Likewise, a 21-year-old woman identified simply as Miss Emmanuel told Saturday PUNCH that she was afraid many residents would be disenfranchised of exercising their civic rights in the forthcoming polls. She said, “Boko Haram has chased us out of our homes. No one here even remembers any upcoming elections. We would rather prefer safety and food to voting. “These insurgents are unpredictable. Even if elections will hold here, you can be at the polling booth and they can just decide to throw their dirty bombs. No one feels safe.” As of recent, the spokesperson for the Catholic Church in the North-East, Rev. Fr Gideon Obasogie, also said that the Church had lost many of its members to the Boko Haram insurgency. He said, “Many of them are still missing. For now, people sleep in refugee camps; many of the communities are under the control of Boko Haram. In fact, people are fleeing in thousands.” He added that it was funny to think any North-Eastern residents would want to sacrifice their lives because of the 2015 elections. Recently, the Catholic Bishop of Maiduguri, Most Rev Oliver Doeme, had taken it upon himself to cater for about 4,110 displaced Christians from other denominations, who came from different villages bordering Borno State due to the Boko Haram attacks. He said, “They were forced to leave their homes and a good number of them have lost their loved ones. They have faced many sorrowful challenges. Youths had to flee because they feared being conscripted by members of the dreaded group. “Over 14 parishes have been sacked and tens of priests have been displaced; some are still searching for their loved ones and others are assisting in the neighbouring Yola Diocese. Up till now, over 90,000 Catholics are displaced. “A good number of those trapped around the Cameroonian borders are gradually finding their way into Maiduguri. Counting their ordeals, some will tell you how they fed on grasses and insects. A group from Pulka community alone buried over 80 children who took ill in the bush and died. We are praying and hoping that things will change.” A security expert based in Lagos, Dr Ona Ekhomu, also said it was impossible to think people in the Boko Haram-ravaged states would be able to vote in 2015. “What they need now is security. It is only if they are safe that they will be able to exercise their civic right. People with no assurance of food, shelter and security cannot vote. They need to be provided all these basic things first before they can even think of voting,” he said. Meanwhile, the security crisis has not stopped politicians and the political parties from campaigning and scheming for votes against next year’s elections, except that some political analysts have watered down the claim of many of the politicians that there would be free and fair elections in the country next year. In his address delivered on November 13, 2014, the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, had said that the party would commence the process of charting a more secure and more prosperous future for Nigerians. He said, “In the next few weeks, our candidates for all elective positions in the February 2015 elections will emerge. I, therefore, appeal to all Nigerians to endeavour to collect their Permanent Voters Cards and use them to vote out the Peoples Democratic Party and vote in the brighter, safer and more prosperous future. “I call on the Independent National Electoral Commission, security agencies and other institutions of government to discharge their responsibilities courageously, fairly and firmly.” President Goodluck Jonathan too had since gotten the support of the PDP for re-election. He said that the Federal Government and his party had put everything in place to ensure the conduct of credible elections in all parts of the country. However, an Abuja-based political analyst, Mr Jide Oluyemi, doubted the possibility of conducting credible elections in the North-Eastern states next year if the violence ravaging them were not contained before 2015. He said, “You cannot say an election will be free and fair if it does not include every eligible voter. In a zone where there are thousands of eligible voters already displaced from their homes, how can such an election be expected to be free and fair? “A free and fair election involves every eligible voter, where the people are not hindered from voting due to any circumstances. In this case, many people in the North-East would want to vote, but they will not be privileged to exercise that right. To me, there cannot be free and fair elections, especially in the North-East next year.” A Lagos-based civil rights lawyer, Fred Agbaje, had also recently questioned the President for “deceiving” Nigerians that the government had signed a ceasefire agreement with the Boko Haram sect towards ensuring peaceful elections in 2015. He said, “I am sure the ceasefire agreement the President told Nigerians about was either not true or done with the wrong people. Otherwise, the original sect would have told us by themselves if there was any ceasefire agreement in the first place. “That is why the Boko Haram insurgents are still kidnapping, maiming and killing people.” However, the Independent National Electoral Commission had said it would not be deterred in conducting elections in the North-East in 2015. The commission’s Chairman, Prof. Atahiru Jega, said that the insurgency in the area was not enough reason to stop the elections. He noted that if elections could hold in war-torn countries like Afghanistan and Iraq, they could as well hold in the troubled North-Eastern states. For example, before the elections on October 26, 2014 in crisis-torn Tunisia, many Tunisians had expressed disappointment with the performance of the government as a result of the economic and security crises which were the aftermath of the 2011 revolution. In the days before the elections in Kasserine, heightened security measures saw the army deployed all over the governorate, with additional troops sent in to boost the capacity of the security services in the area. Remarkable coordination was witnessed between the military, the police, and the local government, as the latter provided logistical support and shelter to army troops while the army protected not just the polling centres but also the distribution of polling materials; the result was a fairly peaceful conduct of the elections. At a recent meeting with members of the Senate Committee on INEC’s creation of polling units in the North-East, Jega noted that while it would be unreasonable to underestimate the security situation in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states, elections could still hold there. He said, “We are having displacement of people; it is a serious challenge. Nobody can underestimate it, but the hope of everybody in this country is that this is a temporary problem and you cannot begin to plan long-term based on a temporary thing. “We hope that states under emergency rule will stabilise sufficiently for us to be able to conduct elections in them.” Jega added that INEC was under obligation to prepare for elections in all parts of Nigeria, even where there were displaced people as long as there were registered voters. His Chief Press Secretary, Mr Kayode Idowu, also told Saturday PUNCH that Nigerians should be optimistic that the insurgency would end before next year, paving the way for the electoral body to carry out the exercise in the troubled states. “Mere optimism will not work in this scenario if no concrete plans are being discussed,” political commentator, Oluyemi, said.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Nov 2014 16:03:54 +0000
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