Stakehoders oppose governor’s position By Joseph Erunke & Jude Okpara ABUJA—ADAMAWA State governor, Bala Ngilari, yesterday, asked the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to suspend the conduct of any election in the state till around April. The governor said the security situation in the state has not improved to warrant any election, saying sustained attacks were still being launched on the state by the Boko Haram insurgents just as he feared that the dreaded insurgents could take advantage of the election to inflict severe attacks on the state residents that may be trooping out in their numbers to cast their votes during election. Ngilari spoke in Abuja, at a workshop on Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, and the 2015 general elections, organised by INEC. He was , however, opposed by stakeholders from the North East, who insisted that if elections could hold in troubled countries like Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan and others, no state in the region must be exempted. The stakeholders meetings, which had in attendance, governors of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States as well as federal law makers, civil society organisations and security agencies, was to deliberate on some of the modalities drafted by a task force set up by INEC to review ways of enabling IDPS vote during next month’s election. He said: “I must first of all commend the INEC for doing a good job, trying to ensure that our electoral process is continued to be improved upon. In Adamawa State, I am going to give you the facts and figures that would be fair enough to tell you the situation of the state. “We have over 39,000 internally displaced persons in about 15 designated camps and over 15,000 that are not registered and are still in the host communities. We are told that about 11,000 registered with families. “In Adamawa State, I can sincerely tell you that we are under siege in about seven local governments. The supposed peace we have is just the peace of the grave yard. To say that the security situation in these local governments is sufficiently stabilised to have this elections on February 14, to my mind is not a fair assessment. That is my own submission, everybody is entitled to refuse but that is our own position as a government. I am the state chief security officer. Even as I am speaking now, this morning, there was an attack in Gulak which directly affects us in Adamawa. “Before last Saturday, the situation was said to have been stabilised until this attack. With this attack which completely reverberated across these local governments, of course, people will be concerned about their dear lives.” - See more at: vanguardngr/2015/01/cant-conduct-election-adamawa-now-ngilari-tells-jega/#sthash.6aWr8VvK.dpuf
Posted on: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 09:38:33 +0000
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