Jega, INEC chiefs meet on displaced persons’ voting

The Chairman, Independent National Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, and other senior officials of the commission met on Thursday in Abuja on how Internally Displaced Persons can participate in the general elections.
Jega had at different fora assured Nigerians that voters from the troubled North-East would participate in the elections.
This made the commission to set up a committee to fashion out how to accommodate the IDPs in the conduct of the elections.
The commission was said to be considering the option of carving out constituencies for Internally Displaced Persons.
This was one of the possible options looked into by the task force set up by INEC to ensure that IDPs, scattered across the country, could vote in the February general elections.
The committee was given a two-week mandate to submit its report.
Chief Press Secretary to the INEC chairman, Mr. Kayode Idowu, had disclosed this on a television programme, monitored by our correspondent in Abuja on Wednesday.
IDPs camps have been created in sections of the country close to the three states of Yobe, Borno and Adamawa which have been under the attacks of insurgents.
Idowu disclosed that the IDP committee had submitted its report which he said, was undergoing processing by the commission.
He added that safe havens could be carved out as constituencies for internally displaced persons to vote, saying such option was constitutional.
He said, “Various options are being considered. One option is to designate a safe haven as a constituency, because the law prescribes constituency and residency voting.
“You can designate a safe area as a safe haven and invite everybody to come to that constituency from wherever they dwell within or outside the country to come over and cast their votes.
“If you have the possibility of IDP camps being homogenous in terms of where people migrated from, you can move the polling units and get them to vote. So there are many options that the security can work with but essentially, it will still need security cover to do these things.”