Determined to ensure that all eligible voters in the troubled north eastern states are not disenfranchised in the February general elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is exploring all options to ensure participation of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).
Consequently, the commission has scheduled a meeting with stakeholders on Tuesday to work out the modalities that will ensure that the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) exercise their civic duty.
According to INEC Daily Bulletin, those expected at the meeting are: Three (3) representatives of the State Governments of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe; Members of the State Houses of Assembly from the three States; Speakers of the State Houses of Assembly from the three States; Religious Leaders (CAN and SCIA); Representatives of Security Agencies comprising Army, Police, DSS, Office of NSA, Chief of Defence Staff and Civil Defence Corps; Director General NEMA; CSOs (Cleen Foundation, ACE etc); DG IPCR; Present and Former RECs of the States; and Administrative Secretaries of the States.
To ensure that the IDPs are not disenfranchised in February’s elections, the Commission had two months ago organized a Roundtable to discuss the fate of the IDPs.
Experts and academics generated ideas to address the issue of the IDPs which were submitted to the Commission.
Thereafter, the Commission set up a Task Force on how to get the IDPs to vote within the ambit of the extant laws. The nine-member Task Force headed by National Commissioner, Thelma Iremiren had the following terms of reference:
Examine the legal, political, security and administrative challenges in achieving IDP voting during the 2015 General Election; Evaluate the standards and recommendations emerging from conferences and workshops by international and local agencies on IDP voting, and determine their applicability to Nigeria for the 2015 General Election; Review the experiences of other jurisdictions in dealing with the challenges of IDP voting;
Evaluate the adequacy of existing electoral legal frame-work for resolving the challenges of IDP voting in the 2015 General Election; Determine what the Commission can do to ensure that IDPs are not disenfranchised, if the existing legal framework is inadequate; Determine the scope of IDP participation that is practicable in the 2015 General Election; and Submit a comprehensive report, which should embody specific recommendations on IDP participation in the 2015 General Election.
