Poll: All eyes on the North- East

The much-awaited presidential election holds today amid threat by the leader of the violent Boko Haram sect, Abubakar Shekau, to disrupt the poll in the troubled North-East, FISAYO FALODI writes

Today’s presidential election has been described by some observers as a major exercise that will determine the continued existence of Nigeria as a country.

The observers believe that the torrent of the challenges, especially the insecurity confronting the country’s North-eastern states of Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe is a potential threat to Nigeria’s survival after the presidential election.

A former United States Ambassador to Nigeria, Walter Carrington, stressed this point not long ago when he said that if Nigeria could conduct free and fair elections, tackle corruption and bring the ongoing war against insurgency to an end, the country would realise its potential.

Over 13,000 Nigerians were said to have been killed and over one million people displaced from their homes since the Boko Haram sect began its violent attacks on the country six years ago.

As eligible voters, however, file out today to participate in the process that will lead to the emergence of a new president, the observers have raised concern over the fate of the residents of the violent-hit North-Eastern states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe.

Though it was said that the military has recorded appreciable success in the fight to contain the activities of the Boko Haram sect with the recovery of no fewer than 36 towns hitherto taken over by the terror group from it, observers said the recent threat by the sect leader, Abubakar Shekau, to disrupt today’s poll because “it is un-Islamic” should not be taken with kid gloves.

Shekau, who in a video released recently, had said, “This election will not be held even if we are dead. Even if we are not alive, Allah will never allow you to do it.

“Allah will not leave you to proceed with these elections even after us, because you are saying that authority is from people to people, which means that people should rule each other, but Allah says that the authority is only to him, only his rule is the one which applies on this land.

“And finally we say that these elections that you are planning to do, will not happen in peace, even if that costs us our lives.”

But the observers said the recovery of the towns might have weakened the activities of the terror group, the military should ensure that the insurgents were prevented from carrying out their threat in order to ensure that the electorate cast their votes without fear or favour.

A former Commissioner of Police, Mr. Abubakar Tsav, in an interview with Saturday PUNCH tasked the security personnel mobilised to the North-East to make two issues their focal points – ensure the safety of voters and the electoral officers and protect other residents from being attacked by insurgents.

Tsav said, “If elections could be successfully conducted in countries that had one time or the other been hit by violence, the people of the three states under the Boko Haram siege should be protected to freely participate in the election as soldiers have told Nigerians that they had liberated the troubled region from terrorists.”

He also asked the security agents to frustrate Shekau’s threat to disrupt the poll.

A former Chief of Army Staff, Gen. Alani Akinrinade, saw the conduct of the poll as an exercise that must not be allowed to be disrupted by any terror leader or group.

He said though the terror leader had served notice to disrupt the poll, the nation’s Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces must equally rise up to prove to him that the collective interest of Nigeria is superior to the parochial interest of an individual.

Akinrinade said, “Shekau might have served a notice to cause trouble on the election day, the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces should serve him a notice that democracy is superior to the violence the terror leader is promoting.

“The Commander in Chief should let him realise that we intend to have the election on Saturday (today) and that he should do everything humanly possible to ensure that the threat is frustrated.”

The insecurity caused by the Boko Haram sect in the North-eastern states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa was cited as the major reason behind the postponement of the general elections from February 14 and February 28 to today and April 11.

The presidential election is majorly between the Peoples Democratic Party candidate, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, and that of the All Progressives Congress, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd), though there are other less popular presidential candidates.

However, the urge to conduct the election in the troubled region by the Independent National Electoral Commission was believed to have been spurred by the headway the military is making in the battle against insurgency.

INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, stressed this belief when he said recently at a forum organised in Abuja by the African Policy Research Institute that the commission was working hard to limit the number of Nigerians that might be disenfranchised as a result of the insurgency.

The INEC boss buttressed his point by saying that the electoral body had received adequate assurance that security would be provided for the March 28 and April 11 elections in every part of the country.

“We are getting over 700,000 ad-hoc staff and we cannot put the lives of 700,000 people at risk. We have received full assurances that security will be provided for the elections,” he said.

The assurance of the security agencies gave the Internally Displaced Persons in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states the opportunity to participate in the poll through the special polling centres created for them.

According to Jega, arrangements have been made in the three states to ensure that the IDPs vote.

He had said, “When the methodology for the IDPs was designed, it showed that there were fewer people in camps and more outside and so it was recommended that voting centres for IDPs should be outside the camps, while in Borno State, it was recommended that the voting centre should be inside the camps.

“This makes it easier for us because my team has made an assessment to know those that have collected their PVCs. The polling unit will be set up in accordance to the local government that corresponds with the number of people in the camps.”

To achieve the objective, INEC raised a task force chaired by the National Commissioner, Mrs. Thelma Iremiren, to get the IDPs exercise their civic responsibility. Members of the task force include Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states Resident Electoral Commissioners.

Specifically, the terms of reference of the task force are to examine the legal, political, security and administrative challenges in achieving IDP voting during the 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 polls.

Others are reviewing the experiences of other jurisdictions in dealing with the challenges of IDP voting; evaluating the adequacy of existing electoral legal framework for resolving the challenges of IDP voting; determining what the commission can do to ensure that IDPs are not disenfranchised, if the existing legal framework is inadequate and determining the scope of IDP participation that is practicable in the general election.

But residents of Madagali and Michika towns in Adamawa State are not likely to vote in today’s election despite the efforts made by relevant stakeholders to ensure that all eligible voters participate in the exercise.

INEC said it would not deploy its staff to conduct elections in the two towns because it had yet to get clearance from security operatives. But INEC’s position differs from claims by some groups identified as Michika elders that Madagali and Michika are safe for elections.

An expert in security management, Dr. Ona Ekhomu, believes that no matter the number of measures put in place, the terrorists might still carry out their threat because they are ready to die.

“The fact of the matter is that terrorists are going to strike on the election day no matter what anybody does to prevent the attack. The terrorists are going to attack voting venues with the use of improvised explosive devices, especially where there is large number of voters,” he said.

According to him, the relative success being recorded by the military in the anti-terror war is not enough to guarantee that election should hold in the troubled parts of the country.

Ekhomu said, “The terrorists have become a full grown threat to the nation’s security; they are not going to do anything less than carrying out Shekau’s threat to disrupt the election.

“It is rather fool hardy for INEC to contemplate having election in the troubled states; it demonstrates some measure of insensitivity on the part of the electoral body that it must hold election in those states when all is not going to be well with them in terms of security.”

He also flayed the idea of creating special polling units for the IDPs. Ekhomu compared a situation in which the IDPs were asked to vote at the special polling centres with asking a resident of Edo State to leave his ward without fault of his own to travel many kilometres to Lekki area of Lagos State to exercise his civic responsibility.

“It is electoral fraud on the part of INEC to ask the IDPs to vote outside their wards or local government areas. Special polling centre does not exist in the Electoral Law,” he said.

In spite of his opposition to the conduct of the election in the troubled states, Ekhomu wants the security personnel deployed in preventing breakdown of law and order to be more vigilant.

He also expressed fear that states such as Bauchi, Gombe and Kano that have had fair share of the Boko Haram attacks in the past are not immune from any possible strike by the terror group.